We All Are In Our Own Way
by Gotsims1
Summary: Zoro and Robin get to know each other outside (and occasionally inside) of combat. They fall slowly, carefully in love with one another despite being private, guarded people. Multiple chapters, several adventures.
1. A World of Our Own

Robin opened her book. She inhaled the scent of old dry pages and fine compressed dust. Possibly her favorite, aside from the aroma of brewing coffee beans. The scholarly damsel sped through page after page, soaking masses of information, along with beams cast by the evening sun. She was sitting on-deck in a folding chair. Nothing unusual about this situation whatsoever. Nor was it that unusual that Zoro decided to sit down on the nearby steps either, or that he was passing time with a dumbbell in his grip while alternating arms now and then.

What was out of the ordinary, however, was the fact that he decided to question Robin about her book.

"You look real absorbed in that thing."

She unglued her eyes from the text, putting her slender digit on the word she stopped at for the ease of return to where she was. Robin smiled in her predictable and effeminate manner. Even after seeing it countless times he couldn't help but internally and extremely briefly note that it still made his breath change up momentarily.

He seemed to have nothing else to say to her. Prompting her to resume her venture into the material.

"Isn't there supposed to be some kind of information or imagery on the cover?" He asked her blankly.

She looked up at him.

"Yes. You're absolutely right."

Robin laid her book with its insides against the small table in front of her.

"The thing about this one is, it was printed several hundreds of years ago… You see. While it's sturdily and beautifully bound in leather, the fashion of the time was to simply write the title and author on this…"

She gently lifted her book off the table and flipped to the front of it, displaying it to the swordsman.

"The first page."

Zoro lifted a curious brow.

"Huh… Fancy that."

He put his dumbbell down next to him and massaged his sore biceps.

"I can't see from here what it says though. Care to indulge me?" His stoic tone of voice made it sound more like a command than a question.

"Of course. The book is called 'Fear: Mortality's Sense'."

"That's not gloomy or anything." He quipped.

"Fufufufu."

He leaned back on his palms enjoying the warm weather.

"I take it the book covers death as a topic."

Brook was coming down the stairs and the leaf colored man made sure to get out of the way as the skeleton avoided his training equipment.

"Well, it does. In doing so, however… There is a lot of talk about vivacity, and life. As you probably are aware, the two are completely inseparable. We would have no way to describe one without the existence of the other."

"I'm not sure about that. But I don't pretend to have all the answers either... Wait, you mean the book isn't depressing?"

Brook had walked off to talk to Usopp about fishing technique.

"Well, yes and no… There is the expected melancholy. The thing is, this isn't an emotional piece as much as a scientific and philosophical one. The author discusses the drive observed in biological creatures, a sort of force that powerfully drives all things living on earth to stay alive."

He nodded.

"To give you an idea of how universal this is, I could take the example of your weight training."

"Aeh?"

"It's true!" She chirped enthusiastically.

"Your weight training is a reflection of your instinctual drive to pursue a dream you believe at your core to be beneficial to your wellbeing, and consequently… Survival on a more all-encompassing scale.

Consider this: Everything we do positively for ourselves and for our health raises our chance of evading potential predators in nature and overwhelmingly often furthers our social life. It also raises our value as potential mates, which factors powerfully into survival instinct and our body's internal reward processing. "

He wasn't always sure of every term had used, but he got the gist of the speech.

"I see…"

He felt a soft breeze brush his face as it swept the ship.

"…You know, I could say the same about your reading."

"You surely could. That's what makes this line of academic thought so interesting. It's everywhere around us. Even in animals and plants. "

Zoro leaned back on the steps and folded his arms behind his head as a cushion.

"Plants?"

"Yes. There is evidence that countless species of flora have self-preserving behavior. Which prompts the observance of apparent correlation between self-preservation and being defined as a living thing. This theory is incredibly ahead of its time, and from an age when literacy was staggeringly low. It's originally hand-written."

Zoro would've normally fallen asleep a long time ago in his comfortable pose.

"What's the author's name?" He sounded annoyed that she hadn't already mentioned it.

"Ah, he's called Caluheim Marten. Although, women were barred from academia and often used masculine and androgynous monikers when they learned to read and write. So I may never know his true gender."

Zoro shifted a little on his arms, which were getting squished by his head.

"This Caluheim… Must've had a strange existence." He was a little drowsy by now, but still interested.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked.

"Well, imagine living life surrounded by people who are illiterate, and living your life in a sea of information they'll never have access to..."

He stretched his legs out in front of him.

"…Must've been a tad isolating."

Robin rested her head in her hand while responding.

"Yes." She seemed a little bit solemn, but returned to a neutral expression as she added:

"On the other hand, imagine how much information he had to share with others.

Maybe he became a great teacher… Perhaps even taught a few illiterate people to read and write?"

"Good point." He grinned.

"Guess attitude and will is a big part of it."

"It truly is."

"That doesn't change the fact that he was real different from everyone around him. Probably lived in a world of his own in a way." He had bent his knees back up and laid his arms against his lap. More than that, he was looking at her.

She felt a little flustered, looking back straight into his eyes confrontationally. Her lips curled a little as she looked off to the side calmly once more. Robin stroked the cover of her beloved text, enjoying the microscopic shifts scratches and stutters in its surface.

"We all live in a world of our own, in our own way." She said.

He eyed a line of seagulls which were making their way across the sky, as he digested her words.


	2. Gourmet Gossip

"Oi, Chopper. That knife's used for bread. You'll want one of these instead."

Doctor Tony Tony gratefully accepted the new utensil and watched closely as Sanji demonstrated the trick to chopping onions without tearing up.

"Watch your hooves, doctor." Robin called out from across the dining space.

"I'll be ok Robin! I've used scalpels to perform surgery!" The tiny deer friend seemed overwhelmingly happy to be surrounded by friends.

Robin and Nami were seated at the table. The cook's favorite ladies each had a cup of hot chocolate to fuel their talk session.

Robin looked at the navigator.

"How long do you reckon we have until we reach shore?"

Nami laid her head on the table.

"It's looking like endless sea right now. There's nothing in the weather or sea that indicates we're near the log pose's target." She looked like she missed solid ground.

"Then there's nothing to do but remain patient I suppose."

Nami yawned. "I'll be back on deck soon… I just needed a little break. Which is why I told Zoro to get in the crow's nest and tell me if anything strange appears."

"Then we're in safe hands."

"Yeah… Until he takes the wheel and tries to steer the damn ship. At worst we'll end up back in the East Blue. At best? We find the One Piece in five damn minutes!"

The two women burst out laughing. Sanji and Chopper glanced over at them, then looked at each other and shrugged. The chef put his hand on the deer's shoulder and began to share his vast wisdom on the mysterious ways of beautiful women.

Robin collected herself and consciously decided to pry.

"You two have been through a lot together. You're the two first members to join the crew, no?"

"Mm." Nami smiled. "It's been a hell of a ride. Luffy, Zoro and I were getting into trouble from the very day I met them."

Robin looked over at Sanji and Chopper, who were deeply invested in a conversation about fridge stocking and nutritional importance for the crew's physiology. They didn't seem to be listening at all, so she took her shot.

"Forgive me for my insatiable curiosity…"

Nami was sipping her cocoa in satisfaction.

"… But has anything ever happened between any of you?"

Nami gulped the drink hard and grimaced.

"You almost made me spit my drink all over you!"

She looked a bit indignant.

Robin used her own facial expression to probe Nami once again.

"No!…"

"NO."

She lowered her voice.

"If you're asking what I think you're asking… Luffy's an overgrown child, and I love him, but I don't think he cares much for the touch of a woman. As for Zoro…"

"…Nah. Too gruff. Not my type."

Nami's pupils shrank as she stared at Robin.

"Wait… WHY are you asking?"

The avian nosed beauty laughed.

Nami lowered her voice even more.

"Don't tell me you're interested in one of them?"

Robin gazed at Nami, bathing her in the signature mystery her eyes cast upon its subjects. After a few seconds trying to phrase herself, she settled on a sentence.

"Let's just call it intrigued."

Nami looked somewhat concerned and confused.

"It's not Luffy is it?" She pressed her crewmate.

"No." Robin responded.

A look of amusement spread on Nami's face.

"I guess the phallic imagery is your thing huh."

"I like a man who can use his mouth effectively." She said matter-of-factly.

Nami pushed her empty cup away from herself while grinning.

"Damn Robin! Keep this up and you're gonna make the whole navy of the world government blush."

"They owe me at least that much." She responded.

"You've got a point there."

Robin smiled at Nami.

"So what is your type?"


	3. What Just Happened

The ocean waves danced, reflecting a large, radiant moonlit darkness.

Zoro sighed and leaned relaxed onto the ship's siderail. The stillness was silent, if you discounted the waves softly licking the ship's hull with a splat now and then.

His hand instinctively flew to his sword handle as he picked up a different noise.

 _False alarm… It's just the kitchen door._

"Robin…"

She walked his way.

"Good evening."

She bathed him in softness again. He was getting more and more at ease with such behavior since the crew had confirmed her loyalty.

Although he still wasn't _used_ to it.

"It's very late, shouldn't you be in bed?" She questioned him.

He frowned slightly. He couldn't think of a good response. He didn't much enjoy people acting like authorities, but Robin sounded more like she was concerned for him than exercising a desire for control. He supposed it was ok.

The tall figure wearing a comfortable sweater approached him through the cool air.

"I assume daytime is the time you sleep best?"

She leaned onto the railing.

"Why do you care?"

"It wasn't judgement, just an observation."

She wrapped her arms around herself and continued:

"Maybe you got held up by the beautiful view. I know it's the reason _I_ came back out at least."

She knew she wasn't talking solely about the scenic nature.

"It's a bit unusually good tonight, yeah."

He didn't mean the scenery either. Not entirely.

"Can I ask you something?" She said.

"That depends on what…"

"Whatever happened to your eye?"

"Ah…"

"…Well."

"I messed it up, dueling my mentor."

"Is it difficult? Losing half your vision?"

He took a breath, his body vividly recalling the searing pain in the place his scar now existed.

"Honestly?

Not as difficult as the knowledge that I ever let it happen."

She fixed her gaze on the disgraced man. The moonlight lighting up the planes of his body flatteringly.

"I was careless." He frowned.

Robin looked back at the dancing waves beneath them.

"You know, if it's any comfort… Your injuries are an occupational risk."

She looked back at him delivering her gentle smile subtly.

"I'm somewhat impressed you've managed to keep your face so intact for so long. Especially considering the fact that you've been a swordfighter since childhood."

"Yeah. Guess that sort of helps."

He looked at his scratched up hands.

"Wait a second…" Turned his head to her.

His face contorted into a half-smile sneer. "…How'd you even know I've been at this since I was a kid? Are you keeping tabs on me?" He teased.

"Yes." She spoke monotonously...

"I have to know these things if I'm to betray you all and kill you in an instant." She stood there completely poker-faced.

The poker-face was ruined by Zoro a few seconds after he burst out laughing hysterically.

"Fucking hell Robi-"

Her will broke and she found herself also clutching her sides.

 _If only you could see me now, Saul._

Seeing him so merry felt somewhat exclusive, a sort of thankfulness washed over her as she etched the memory of his laugh instinctively and vividly into the back of her mind.

As Zoro calmed down and re-learned to breathe, he decided to turn around and lean onto the ship's side via his back and elbows instead.

"Well. What about you Robin? You been a bookworm since childhood?"

"If I tell you, you have to promise not to blackmail me and cause my death."

He snorted loudly.

Since when was she this damn witty? Maybe he'd been paying poor attention… What with how much happened in such a short time when you were with the Straw Hat Pirates. Not bad to slow down now and then, after all.

"Out with it woman."

"Haha, alright." She mimicked his lean onto the rail, a subtly and elegantly snarky grin painted on her as she did so.

"I started back in Ohara." She chuckled.

"Yeah?"

"As a matter of fact, there was a humongous library there. A literal tree of knowledge…" He noticed how her face lit up with nostalgia.

"… It was humongous. I owe it a lot. Knowledge is a powerful tool, especially if you learn to effectively take it in and employ it."

"I don't doubt it. Come to think of it, there's a lot of respect for knowledge circulating in dōjōs too."

He corrected himself: "Well-the good ones at least."

Robin noted what he'd said with a slight nod of the head, she inched closer to him without noticing it, then continued. "When I was on the run, it wasn't just the things I'd learned as a child that helped me find work and shelter… Literature filled in for all the authority figures I was missing. Books were reliable, you take care of them, and they always take care of you in kind."

She paused, and felt a slight pang of sadness as she stared at the horizon.

"People aren't as reliable."

Zoro noted her change in tone as he snuck a look at her groomed eyebrows.

"You're right. They're not…"

He admired the pristine skin on her hand, the way her nails were perfectly kempt.

"…I'm glad the people on this crew have been, though. That includes you."

Robin looked at him in surprise and gratitude.

"Zoro…" She said, almost whispering.

There it was again, that intense, focused and unforgiving glare of his.

"I could say the same of you, to say the least." She added, very gently. They were only a few inches apart.

Without giving it much more thought, his arm wrapped itself around her waist, the other pushed her upper back up against him gradually. She leaned onto his mouth with her own, resting her hands around his neck carefully, framing his jaw with her fingers. After a few seconds of their lips pushing against each other firmly, she lifted her blushing face off him briefly to press another kiss onto his warm cheek. She then returned to kiss his mouth once more. This time it was a soft brushing of his lips. She felt his hand land softly and caress her neck, as they leaned their cheeks, then foreheads against each other, basking in the heat of the other for a bit with eyes still closed, holding one another tightly.

As they slowly opened their eyes to have a look at each other, they also backed away slowly to stand at a more socially respectable distance.

 _…_

Before Robin could say anything, he spoke out.

"Uh…" Zoro's mouth was agape, he was dumbfounded and remained pink all over. Lifted one arm and scratched the back of his head as he looked away from her.

"…I… I. Should probably be off to bed." He walked off before getting any kind of answer.

As he made his way to his bedroom he got very angry with himself, but had no clue what else he would have done.

She stayed to enjoy the stars for a moment. Although it proved impossible on account of her body demanding more physical contact. She didn't particularly like feeling so vulnerable.


	4. Urgent Care

Robin and Zoro woke up from a mere few hours of weak sleep. Still highly energized, with their minds on each other.

Her stomach did several backflips as she made her way to the kitchen for breakfast. A cyclops hand sprouted from behind a shelf to survey the room cautiously. _Always be prepared…_ A motto violently engraved in her subconscious.

No sign of him.

The first mate of Captain Monkey D. was in his gym seated on his legs in proper seiza form. He ignored his stomach rumbling, the impending clamminess of his hands and the pounding in his chest.

He forced himself to inhale deeply, at a glacial pace.

 _No use in eating. Appetite's completely MIA. I'll skip ahead, into Mokuso._

 _…_ _Alright..._

Long exhale…

 _First meditation: Why the_ _ **hell**_ _am I losing my cool?_ He felt his face tense up in fury. The swordsman's eyes were shrouded by the blackness of his eyelids.

 _Worried about the crew's atmosphere? No-… The bond that holds us together is indomitable. Luffy's got a knack for keeping us together and he's proven it over and over. Even when Usopp almost deserted us… We would have persevered. That can't be the issue…_

 _Dig deeper damn it._

 _Fill your damn lungs all the way up._

….

 _Am I worried about this thing… Escalating?_

 _Hmm. Potentially… But why?_

 _It can't be anything physical. Let's face it, my body is sharpened to a fine point. My senses? My senses are tuned to expect anything, anywhere, anytime._

 _No. It must be something else._

 _Am I afraid of seeing her… Naked?_ Zoro grimaced, still not opening his eyes.

He remembered Mihawk reprimanding him for letting denial have any part in his thought process.

He'd smacked him on the back of the head with a sword case for lying to him upon being asked a personal question.

"This isn't elementary school, Roronoa."

Zoro Had finished a long exhale and began letting air fill his torso once more.

 _No. I… Look forward to the possibility._

 _She's… Magnificent._

There it was again, fucking blush. The limitations of the human body. He frowned.

 _Being human is not merely weakness. It's all that's known to us and our perception._

 _Man, I'm even starting to talk like Robin…_ He whispered out loud.

A moment passed, as he realized the truth behind his discomfort.

 _I'm afraid of hurting her…_

She'd managed somehow to down the aromatic, sweet, crispy and soft-on-the-inside croissant with tangerine marmalade from Nami's bush that Sanji had arranged for her. It tasted like chewing on paper.

"Robin!" She'd barely noticed Chopper walking into the kitchen.

"Doctor!" She felt just a little safer.

"Are you okay? You look sick!"

"Oh, it's probably just a bit of seasickness." She didn't enjoy lying to her adorable little friend, but in this moment felt it necessary.

"I have just the herbal tea for that!" He began leaving again as she stopped him.

"Please! Have your breakfast first. Don't go all the way to your office yet."

"Oh don't worry, I ate just before you arrived. I was up early because Luffy sleepwalked and… Well, I can tell you about it when I get the tea."

He passed out of the door as Brook walked in.

"Good morning Madame!" The skeleton sang in a jolly albeit short tune arrangement.

Robin chuckled.

"I've been thirsting for some tea all morning." He stated.

"Ah, even though I've no throat to thirst with."

"YOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO~"

His golden triplet earrings, dangling in the darkness abducted her mind again. _This is inconvenient._

Robin couldn't help but sigh a little as her face dropped a little bit despite the skeleton's charmingly idiotic behavior.

"Ms. Robin! It's not often that you look like someone has the drop on you. Is everything alright, fair lady?" He opened a container of tea-leaves.

She supposed there was no reason to lie to another crewmate.

"Well—not entirely. "

The skeleton turned his hollow face to her as he finished putting a filter in his teacup.

He spoke softly.

"You know, I've been on this world for a bit… And if there's one look I can recognize, it's that of a person unhappily enamored."

She startled.

"I don't know what you're assuming, Brook."

He was pouring boiled water in his cup.

"You care deeply about someone, and it's got you in a pickle! Simple as that." He stirred his porcelain drink carefully and quietly.

"I guess you're right on both accounts."

"As it's not my place to pry, I would like to tell you… Whatever the problem is… It's temporary."

Robin smiled at him, somewhat incredulously… After all, he was helping instead of asking to see her underwear.

"After this problem resolves, you'll have another one to deal with!" He opened his already smiling mouth and produced a goofier expression.

Brook returned his face to normal again and added:

"But you will also feel better."

Robin basked in stillness.

"Thank you."

Chopper arrived once more in the kitchen, carrying a big box filled with various accoutrements.

"… Ah! That reminds me. I was going to drink this out on deck!" Brook began to walk out.

"Sayounara~" His melodic goodbye floated through the swinging door.

 _I'm… Physically the strongest man on this ship aside from Luffy. She drives me crazy. I'm afraid I might…_

 _…_ _Lose control._

He listened to the silence.

 _I've cut entire buildings up by accident. Who's to say I won't crush her in some kind of fit of passion?_

 _Ugh, feet are going numb._

 _Who gives a shit?_ _ **Focus.**_

 _Robin is not some fragile girlchild. She is a grown woman. An impressively strong one at that. Maybe it's my own safety I should be worried about._ He suppressed a chuckle.

 _God._ He felt the front of her torso pressing against him again. Another unnessecary distraction. He wrestled the urge to run and find her.

 _Her being into it once… Doesn't mean she will be again._

He hated how the idea made him a little sad. He wasn't supposed to have earthly attatchments like this.

 _This might jeopardize my dream…_

 _…_ _Hm._

 _Will it, though?_


	5. What To Do

Chopper watched Robin as she tried his tea. He did so in surprise, she wasn't flinching or making faces the way its drinkers normally do.

"Thank you doctor."

"Robin… Maybe you should go lie down, I can bring you the cup. Leave it on the table."

"I think I will take your advice." She forced a smile and added:

"But no need for you to bring me the cup."

Robin set her cup down on the bedside table in Nami and her own chambers as she laid down onto her nicely made bed.

She spent a nice five minutes focusing on breathing deeply, when she was interrupted by her roommate.

"Seasickness?" Nami asked skeptically as she walked into the darkly lit room, switching the lamp on.

Robin sighed.

"You've never been seasick in your entire rough-n'-tumble life-on-the-run Robin. Don't even try to lie to me like you did Chopper."

The woman with the more defined nose bridge raised herself in resignation to Nami, laying her back against the bedframe buffered by a pillow.

"I never lied to Chopper. He decided on an affliction and I merely went with it."

"Uh-huh." Nami sat down on her own bed in a playful bouncing swoop. Despite her annoyance, she was smiling a little.

"What do you know?" Robin did not like the Navigator's confidence at the present moment.

"Only that Zoro got up preposterously early, and marched off without breakfast to his gym…" She leaned back on her arms casually.

"… And that he was making a mortified face I've not seen on him once in the years that I've known him."

Robin felt oddly more at ease at the news.

"So what I'm wondering what the hell you two did, seeing as _you_ didn't show up to sleep here until ungodly hours in the morning…"

Robin smiled somewhat sheepishly.

"Robin!"

"We didn't have sex." She said calmly.

"Wow, not even a euphemism." Nami laid down on her bed and leaned on one arm while facing the Archeologist.

Robin sighed heavily, eyeing the fabric on her sheets, and took a moment as she forced the confession to roll from her lips.

"We may have kissed, however."

"MAY HAVE?" Nami's jaw dropped. She'd shouted the question.

"It won't affect the crew's functionality." Robin said flatly. "We're both perfectly capable of keeping it a private matter." She looked sadder…

"Robin…" The cat burglar's voice was softening, full of a sudden onset of sympathy.

While the dark haired party felt good to have told her close friend, she couldn't help but feel her own instinct to close up taking over as it was conditioned to do… Her breath was running away from her again.

 _No._

 _I'm going to fight it._

She pulled up her legs and rested her head against them.

Robin's voice was breaking with emotion as she spoke.

"I don't know what to do now."

Nami looked at her beloved fellow woman in shock. This wasn't funny anymore. She thought carefully for a moment before continuing …

"Hey, hey, it'll be okay!"

"Robin… Look at me."

Robin un-buried her now tear-stained face, and fixated on Nami's big brown eyes.

"Whatever **he** does doesn't matter. **You're _one_ of us**."

There was an angry emphasis on the word "he".

Robin's breath steadied a little. Before she knew what hit her Nami had wrapped her in a warm and fragrant hug.

 _It's already insanely distracting, SHE's been a distraction since she got on this ship!_

 _Maybe if we screwed and got it over with, we could both go back to being plain old crewmates._

 _Except we couldn't, AND the temptation might just get stronger. DAMN IT ALL._

 _I like to think I'm disciplined… But this is… Like nothing I've ever faced as a swordsman._

"Ssshit" Zoro's curseword echoed through the empty wooden space.

 _Okay, suppose we were in a relationship…._

 _I don't train /all day/ /every day/._

 _Maybe if I cut down on the sleeping…_ He opened his eye slightly to glance to the side in concentration.

 _Or if I did the sleeping… In her lap as she reads…_

 _That's preposterous._ He re-shut his eyes and scrunched his face in frustration.

 _What the hell am I gonna do._

Robin responded to Nami's physical warmth by putting her hands lightly on her. It was a step up from Enies Lobby at least, when she'd been unable to muster even that.

"As long as I'm part of the Straw Hat Pirates, Nico Robin. I swear on Belle-Mere's GRAVE. You're not going anywhere!" She was yelling again.

This brought a chuckle out of the sad woman.

"Besides. You got some action! Isn't that a good thing? I mean, relationship, no relationship, freak-occurrence, genuine emotion, who caaaares? Enjoy it for whatever it was!" She was trying to be chipper again, unconvincingly so. Robin appreciated it nevertheless.

"I mean… It _was_ … Nice… Right?" Nami grimaced as Robin started giggling.

"Yes. It was just lovely, believe it or not." She wiped her eyes on her hand

"I still can't believe this entire situation." The red-head was genuinely very confused.

"To be quite honest with you, neither can I."

The two women basked in the quiet contemplatively. Until Robin, who had stopped sniffling spoke up.

"I mean I always saw myself seducing him, but to have emotions in the mix is… Unheard of for me."

"And for him!" Nami interjected…

"Psh, emotions. I didn't even know that blockhead was capable of those." She teased in addition.


	6. I Suppose It's Obvious

They encountered each other at lunch.

She was already seated next to Nami.

He looked everywhere but at her as he walked in and helped himself to the food he so badly needed.

As the crew began to file out, she felt her heart sink in secret as he left again.

Two days at sea passed, after a particularly stormy one came some oddly pleasant weather.

Even Luffy, who couldn't see—or care—about crew drama, unless it was challenging him to a duel for his own ship and deserting the Straw Hat Pirates, that is… Commented on the aloofness of his crewmates.

He squinted in the sunlight.

Shielded his eyes with one hand while staring over the rail at the calm waves.

"Did Robin and Zoro fall in the sea? They've barely been on deck lately."

"No. They're just being… Weird." Said Usopp, while also squinting.

"They're being boring!" The childlike captain pouted in dissatisfaction. "Man, aside from that storm yesterday it's been way too still out here!" He screamed at the waves.

This time, when dinner came around Zoro was fully determined.

As the strawhats began to file out of the room, and as the dishes were washed by those on duty, Robin didn't inch from her spot at the table. Her expression was blank. She wasn't expecting anything to happen, but there was no reason to leave yet either. So she sat almost catatonic, staring at the wall deep in thought.

The last other member of the crew to leave was Sanji. He wasn't so oblivious that he hadn't noticed the two still seated on opposite sides of the now clean table in tomblike silence. He shrugged internally as he left, he had no idea what to make of it, and Nami had imposed on him that he should stay out of it.

He did love carrying out orders from his sweet Nami-Swan.

As the door waved shut Robin and Zoro looked at each other and produced a sentence each at the same time, over one another:

"It's time we talked about this."  
"Let's stop this silent nonsense."

"Listen, I—"

"Ok, look."

They waited again for the other to start talking, cautiously. Upon neither daring risk interrupting the other again, Zoro nodded at her, signaling she should go first.

"Whatever it was that happened…" She said to him gently.

He got out of his seat and traversed the lengthy side of the dinner table over to her. Sat himself down opposite Robin.

"… Whatever happened between us..." He felt his muscles tense at her words. He was prepared to hear the worst and take it like a warrior.

"… Can't be resolved by not talking about it." He relaxed significantly. _She's not upset at least._

"I agree."

He thought for a second.

"So, what have you got to say?" She was barely audible. _Expect the worst, just in case…_

Zoro looked up at her, stern as usual as he responded.

"I don't regret it."

Robin remained still as a sculpture, save for the microscopic hint of a smile that settled on her very gradually.

"Neither do I." He locked eyes with her.

The room was dimly lit, but she caught the flicker of satisfaction that made its way onto the angry man's face to match hers.

Somewhere during their exchange of words, he had leaned toward her across the table gradually while resting on his forearms. She noticed her hands were clasped together a mere few centimeters from his. She decided she owed him for initiating the last experience, which is why her fingers ceased their own intertwinement, intending to take hold of his.

Before she could sort out how to hold him, he had already taken her soft paw in his coarse one. He contained his embarrassment as he shut his eyes while he bowed his head down to press the tops of her warm, pretty fingers against his mouth and pushed it against them.

Robin was in complete shock.

She felt like a ringmaster with her favorite ravenous pet tiger. Surprised, but unable to suppress a sort of effeminate pride within herself as he lowered her hand to the table.

"I suppose it's... Somewhat obvious, but I want to keep doing whatever it is we're up to." He said, still red in the face.

She smiled warmly at him, and responded.

"I'm glad to hear that." Her voice was back to its loving, saccharine self.

She decided to be extra clear with her communication.

"I suppose it's somewhat obvious that I do too."


	7. Oh, Worm?

Luffy dropped out of the air onto what seemed an endless and vast expanse of…

"Flowers?" Zoro stated the question rather flatly.

"This looks pretty empty…" He pursed his lips in confusion. He wasn't much for the bluebells, daisies, and endless varities of flowers he had never seen in his life before covering a flat territory like a soft carpet. The distance was obscured by a soft, mirage-like transparent fog. It danced in the distance, blurring together the sky and ground into a strange smudge of visuals.

The rest of the crewmates were joining him on solid land… At least, it was mostly solid.

"Hmm, makesh sunse the shoil is shoft underneath. You need pretty fertchile groundsh for something like thish." Sanji mumbled, hands in pockets, with his cigarette in his mouth.

Chopper parted a patch of the plants to have a look at the terrain. "Seems like there's a lot of worms!"

"EWwwW…!" Nami was less than pleased at the news.

Robin rested her chin in her hand curiously.

"What could be providing the nutrients for this soil? I don't see a single animal here aside from the worms…"

"I don't know much about that, but I _can_ give you all good news about the ship…" The semi-robot opened an inbuilt compartment in his arm to pull out three small devices that resembled car keys.

"I just finished a little side-project of mine."

The crew gathered around Franky to inspect what he had with him.

"These are ship trackers..."

 **"WOAHH"** Chopper and Luffy exclaimed in unison, stars in their eyes at the gadgets.

"… You can yank on here, and turn it into a bracelet or anklet." He handed one out to Robin and one to Nami. The two of them seemed most reliable and attentive to him.

Whatever you prefer, really. The point is:" He pushed a small button on his device as it began to blink softly and slowly.

"Should you lose your way, this bad boy has a mini compass that'll point you right back to where the Sunny is." He beamed proudly behind his black sunglasses.

Sanji blew smoke out to say what everyone wanted to.

"Why not embed one in the back of this navigationally-challenged moss head's hand? Maybe one in each, in case one of 'em gets sliced off?"

"WHY YOU…" Zoro lunged at him as the cook dodged him and attempted to kick his head missing… The two continued sparring until Franky interrupted them.

"I did consider that option, but to be honest with you I don't know how I would do it effectively without giving him robo-arrms… And for a swordsman like himself, that would be SUUUUUUPERRRRRRRR STRESSFULLLLll!" He joined his forearms in the air above his blue hairdo with a clink.

"AY AY oiOI, watch your mouth Franky!" Roronoa screamed.

Robin giggled into her hand and Nami rolled her eyes.

"What are your orders, Luffy?" Usopp asked.

Luffy adjusted his straw-hat a bit on his head, turned 360 degrees using all several of his brain cells.

"EVERYONE!"

"Let's split up!" He beamed.

Nami was surprised. "That's… Actually not a bad idea. We'll cover more ground, and who knows, maybe after walking for ages we may even find something interesting or useful!"

Usopp was not pleased about this idea, he was trying not to be noticed sneaking back onto the ship.

"Where do you think you're going?" Nami shouted.

"Ah, I was just going to uh… Guard the ship! Yes! That's my wish right now... Hehhehhh, the mighty Usopp would like…" He stood up on the ship edge with his hands on his hips and proclaimed:

 **"TO DEFEND THE GOING SUNNY!"**

"From WHAT? Nami screamed

"Hnn…" Zoro chuckled from below.

"…I mean sure! Be my guest, but you do know if you do that, you'll be completely alone aboard it? For who knows how long?" Zoro sassed the tan Pinocchio-like comrade.

"That's exactly why I'm staying with him." Everyone looked over at Franky.

"You're not eager for open land?" Brook asked the gold-chain clad cyborg.

"Nah, I'm all but empty of cola, which means… I'm not going to be very useful in battle. If there's one thing I _can_ do however, it's make good use of the sunny… She's been aching for some patchwork anyway, that storm from the other day tossed some weird wreckage at her."

"Well then. No time to waste. Let's get in groups." Zoro yelled.

"NAMI-SWAAN… ROBIN-CHWAAAAAAAAAAAAN, COME WITH ME ON AN ROMANTIC EXPLORATION TOURRR!" Sanji swirled over to the two female crewmates and began to dance around them.

Zoro frowned extra hard, Robin glanced over at him out of curiosity, she could make out a pronounced vein slowly protruding out of his forhead.

"It might be prudent to have one person with a more academic specialization on each team… And to split into four groups of two."

"That's a good idea Robin! We can grab a small den-den-moshi each in case we need to regroup." Nami added.

"I'd like to collect some field samples, and perhaps do some digging. Zoro?" She looked at him innocuously.

"Mm?"

"If you accompany me, it'll give Luffy freedom to roam as he pleases. He can't do that if I go with him as I need to be stationary while I work. Our skilled chef will probably also want to cover lots of ground, seeing as we are sorely lacking several ingredients onboard the ship."

Zoro nodded at her, his arms still crossed across his bare chest.

"AAAAAH ROBIN-CHWAN… YOU CALLED ME SKILLED!~~~ A LUCKY MAN AM I~~" The blonde had already picked a whole bouquet of flowers to hand to her as he proclaimed it affectionately.

"Chopper, you wanted to hang out with Sanji… Riiight?" She grinned through a pained expression at the medic. "You can heal him if he takes damage, unlike Luffy orr say… Brook! They lack the right… Uh, biology."

"You're right! And I can use my test kits to double check that he doesn't bring back any poisonous or harmful provisions!"

"Ah, it will be an honor to entertain our captain as we scour the land for adventure."

"What about you, Nami?" Luffy was confused again.

"Well, Brook said scour the land for adventure… Since you guys will move the fastest, I can be your extra party member. I'd like to see if I can chart the territory somehow… Even if it is…"

She looked at the acres of flower species.

"Monotonous."

She startled violently and hopped off the ground in a instinctual spasm, looking like she'd seen a ghost.

"Nami? What happened?!" Chopper shouted.

 **"GODDAMN WOOORM!"** She looked ready to cry as she shook the thing off violently. One had decided to make its way onto her sandal-clad foot and she was less than pleased.


	8. Kuina

After a quick den-den-mushi check, and picking up sustenance, the straw hats separated into their respective directions.

Robin wore a backpack loaded with necessary excursion gear. She walked alongside her stony guardian, enjoying the cushion-like sensation of passing through this strange new land. If one could even call it that. The archeologist suppressed a smile as it sank in she was going to finally be in private with her outrageously attractive comrade again after several days of not finding a pause in which to sneak physical contact off him.

Zoro had no clue whether it would be less polite to walk in front or behind the beautiful creature accompanying him. He had no wish to disrespect her by staring at her ass, at least… Not so obviously… On the other hand, walking ahead of her may come off as condescending and overprotective. Which is why he settled for walking at her side.

They were getting further and further from the other mini-groups of Mugiwaras, and slowly approached the strange foggy matter.

"Oi, Robin…"

"Yes, Zoro?"

"... Any chance this is poisonous?"

Robin thought for a second.

"I'm not much of an expert, but based on my own knowledge, experience, and having asked the Doctor… I would say the risk of poisoning is low. It doesn't seem to be a gas. Which makes me presume it can't be toxic."

"What on earth is it if it's not gas?" He was perplexed, but remained usually unexpressive.

"Hmm… It could be an uneven speed of light. There are natural elements and conditions which disrupt the rate at which it reaches our eyes. It could be what's causing this bizarre spectacle."

"Well…" He blushed lightly as he constructed his sentence.

"… It's kind of thick, and I won't be much help to you if we get separated. Stay close."

"With pleasure." She flirted, and moved in closer to him.

He most definitely didn't dislike it…

As the two walked, treelike shapes began to appear around them.

They reached a cluster of them, and as they got closer they began to realize how bizarre the treelike structures were, and how the previously sunny territory got progressively more barren of flowers and grass.

"These… Seem like trees… And yet." Zoro lifted one eyebrow curiously.

That's when a strange noise made its way through the blurry mist.

He bent his knees and adopted a battle-ready pose, hand on-sword-handle.

Robin prepared herself mentally to cross arms… Although she trusted his ability to quickly dispose of any threat that arose, too much to believe she would have to even fight.

The two tuned their ears to their surroundings, but the noise seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

"What the hell is this." The green man growled.

Out of the air, flew a hideous creature, one which seemed composed of some moving mass. It was somewhat birdlike in shape, but it sported a head made of a material resembling the wood on the so-called trees surrounding them.

The thing attempted to gash Robin's side with its razor sharp but was quickly slashed in half by her company.

The thing fell to the ground in two pieces.

"It's… Composed of the worms!" Robin stated, only somewhat phased. She had seen more disgusting things in her life.

Zoro on the other hand, was feeling queasy and unsatisfied.

"I can't believe I've gotta cut _worms_ now."

The insects began to write their way in the direction of the flower fields from whence Zoro and Robin had arrived.

"No use in stabbing all thousand of them." The yukata clad party remained completely disgruntled.

Robin snickered at his remark sweetly, and the feeling subsided.

"What exactly is it you _prefer_ to cut?" She asked.

At which he grinned menacingly.

"To be frank, it's pretty satisfying to slash the right humanoid opponent in two."

The bloodlust was clearly written on his face. She didn't doubt his enjoyment.

"If you get in between the bones at an angle, nick an artery even just a bit… It's fairly easy to kill 'em instantaneously."

"I imagine it's quite the spectacle, watching blood spray out of someone until they pass out." Her face was completely expressionless.

"You'd be right… Anyway. It's not like I look for reasons to do it. I'm not that kind of sadist."

"I understand completely." She had taken a few steps, and they began walking together again as they continued their conversation.

"Yup. As someone who can snap hundreds of people's necks at once, and has _had to_ a lot: You must."

"You either learn to enjoy it, or get wiped out yourself…" He glanced at her.

"… And that…" She looked far away.

"… Is not a price I believe squeamishness to be worth."

"Mm. Fear is a privilege of sorts. One people don't always get to indulge in." He agreed.

"While we're on the subject… What made you want to become a swordsman so badly?" She asked him. She'd wanted to for a long time, but never entirely found a good moment to pop the question.

"Hm." He pondered for a moment.

"I suppose it started with a bratty kid obsessed with proving himself…" He grinned. Then pondered a bit, looking for the right words.

"… I was a little preoccupied with my image. My entire worth seemed to lay in winning. As if that would ward off misfortune, as if it'd keep life from being… Itself."

"You believed being a good fighter would give you control?"

"I guess that's the gist of it." He scratched at his sideburn lightly.

"I mean, I was always good with things involving motor-control and hand-eye coordination. But what made it crucial for me to become number one was when Kuina died." His brow was tensing with frustration again.

"She was someone dear to you I take it."

He chuckled.

"I guess you could put it that way."

Zoro's hand drifted gently onto the end of Wado Ichimonji, secure in her harness.

"At any rate she was a competitive little shit, just like me. That might be why we got along."

Robin was amazed at how natural it felt, learning such vulnerable details about him. She'd never believed they'd ever reach this level of intimacy in her lifetime.

"Well, she died out of the blue."

He thought for a second again.

"We had the same dream. We'd vowed one of us _had_ to become the world's greatest swordfighter."

He sniffed in amusement.

"It probably sounds crazy… But some days I swear her spirit is guiding me through the sword she left…"

"…She helps me gather strength I need in order to work towards my goal. Not just because of what she wanted…" His walk was slowing.

"… But because she imposed on me how fleeting everything is." He stood still, gazing a thousand yards ahead. Robin paused too, and turned gradually to look at his face.

"The things and people important to me, can vanish at any minute. And I've come to accept it's inevitable." Only Roronoa Zoro could manage to sound solemn and infuriated at the same time.

He was giving her his stern signature look again.

"But I want to know that I have done my utmost, every moment of every single day, to stop that from happening prematurely." He growled.

He felt very naked before her suddenly, and yet he managed to look her in the eyes assertively as she approached him slowly, maintaining eye contact and making sure she wasn't trespassing on his space.

Robin put her hand on the side of his face, eyes still locked on his in the still silence. His open one closed comfortably as she did so. The man's skin tickled with euphoria as he placed his sturdy hand on top of hers, tilting his head into her hold and brushing her fingers with his thumb. As he let go they remembered they were in the wilderness, surrounded by god-only-knows what sorts of things. "Let's not get too distracted." The green straw-hat managed to enunciate the phrase hoarsely. "Yes, we've got work to do." The purple-clad party responded.


	9. An Unkind Welcome

Franky and Usopp were done upgrading the deck and were cracking some beers open.

Luffy's team however, was off the grid for some reason.

"They're not picking up the den-den-mushi." Chopper looked at the snail in his hoof with alarm.

"Beacon's not working either." Zoro added.

"I hope they haven't been incapacitated and eaten alive by the swarms." Robin said with a note of concern.

"ROBIN! STOP IT, YOU'RE SCARY!" Chopper cried.

"That'd be funnier if it wasn't plausible. In Nami's case at least." Zoro said.

Sanji startled at the last segment of the phrase.

"Which is why we've no time to lose!" He started looking for an exit.

"I swear, if anything happens to Nami-swan because of this Island I'll set the whole damn place on fire!"

He looked in every direction furiously and muttered:

"Honestly, can't trust Luffy OR Brook to be mindful of an enigmatic _cutie's_ needs! Why did I ever let her venture out with them?"

He grumbled again as he inspected a wall of mysterious looking ancient buttons.

"An animated corpse and a rubber adrenaline junkie, with Nami-swan in their custody?! If she comes back with as much as one _SCRATCH_ I sw-"

Zoro cut through the huge door that'd shut him and Robin in. He had been aching to take revenge on this one as well. The adrenaline still had his heartrate up as he re-sheathed his swords.

Sanji dashed toward the exit, but stopped in his tracks when Robin shouted at him to be careful.

"We've been grappling with more than a few traps in here. You two are lucky that vent wasn't host to any."

She had pulled her flashlight back out, to do a thorough check on the walls, floor, and finally ceiling ahead of them.

"The coast looks clear."

The moment she finished her sentence Zoro had pushed his way out into the corridor.

At the end of the dark walkway, the four of them found nothing but a spiral staircase, and a lot of spider webs.

Robin picked up a long slab of broken concrete, and wound a fair amount of the webs up, removing the obstacles as they ascended. She lit up their perilous climb up dilapidated steps with her flashlight.

The others picked up a piece of rubble each, and passed each one up to her as she cleared the way gradually.

The further up they got, the fresher the air became. The room they found at the top of the stairs was host to a thick wooden door.

"Locked." Sanji said.

He'd barely stepped away from it when Zoro was slashing through it.

"OI YOU DON'T NEED TO KILL ME TO DO THAT!"

The swordsman acted as if he hadn't heard a thing, as he walked through the exit and onto a long walkway.

Robin took her place walking beside him, Sanji and Chopper followed closely behind them. All of them tuned their ears just in case. Sanji glanced over his shoulder now and then.

To both the stress and relief to the straw hat subdivision, the entire walk through the long, airy tunnel was quiet and uneventful.

Sanji narrowed his eyes, noticing the two in front of him were walking somewhat closer to each other than usual. He found it an especially notable coincidence in combination with what he had seen in the glass tube, and the Sunny dining area.

A new feeling of nausea collected in his gut atop of his concern for Nami.

He was no fool, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions either.


	10. Workplace Flirtation

The team of four had—at the end of the long passage—found an entrance to a new building similar to the last. To the relief of every single straw hat, they could hear familiar laughter, and muffled music through the walls.

Chopper called out what they were all thinking in unison.

"Luffy! Brook!"

They ran toward the sound, past doorways, walls and various undiscernible objects.

Finally they arrived to find that it was indeed their captain, launching a group of incoming bug monsters into the sky using his abilities. He'd just taken his regular shape again after having made himself into a stretched out shape. His frame was silhouetted against the evening sky, and he was laughing like a maniac.

"LUFFY!" Zoro hollered from across the room.

The young rubber man spun his head around unnaturally.

"ZORO!" He beamed. Then noticed everyone else.

"GUYS!" He beamed even harder.

Nami and brook were not far from him, the two were safe inside a rectangular glass enclosure. Brook was indeed the source of the merry tune they'd followed, him and Nami lit up as well as they noticed their friends.

"NAMI-SWANN! THANK GOD!" Sanji floated over to his imaginary girlfriend.

"It seems like the coast is clear. It's good to know you're all safe." Robin said warmly.

Chopper happily went to push a nearby button and open the glass shelter.

"What happened to your signal? We tried to call several times, but all we got was static!" The reindeer asked.

As the skeleton and the red-head walked over to everyone else, Nami produced a glowing, bizarre device, much like the style of the catacomb the other group of straw hats had come out of.

"It might have something to do with this thing. It's sending out bizarre waves of some kind."

To demonstrate, she took out the tracking device Franky had given her, and slowly dragged the new gadget close to it. As she did so, the small screen on the tracker turned into a mess of noisy squiggles, and returned to normal as she brought the thing further away.

"Nami. Have you tried using it?" Luffy asked.

"No, and we ought to be _careful_ because who _KNOWS_ what it can do and what it's –"

Before she could finish the captain had pushed a button in its side without her permission.

"LUFFYYYYYYYYY! I swear to GO—" Nami was this time interrupted by noise coming from the mysterious item.

It began with tons of static, which continued to interlace with the aged recording as a voice spoke.

 ** _"The war left no survivors from what we can tell._**

 ** _*HZZT* scene we found was one straight from the depths of hell, in fact. This geographical intiative was funded by the world government. I do admire their *ZZTT*ermination. I know they wanted the mess that was Eden Isle cleaned u*ZBZBZBSDHF*…. *ZZJJZK*nd the bugs worked for that, but what we hadn't ***ticipated waszz *he presence of that damned amalgam fruit. We had even less of a clue the thing would be devoured eagerly by the insects… I've been trying to f****re out why they're attacking the l*ving, with little to no success. Not sure if **s expedition was worth it… Starting to miss my local pub."_**

 ** _"… I may be a man who doesn't care much about his own life, but ******! We lost Brown just *BZZZT*other day."_**

 ** _There was a long pause._**

 ** _"How do you explain that to someone's wife and kids? Died in the name of science?"_**

 ** _…_**

 ** _"As if that makes it any better."_**

The crew was silent for a moment. Right until Zoro spoke up.

"Should've guessed it was a devil's fruit at work."


	11. Into the Forgotten

Sanji was lighting a fresh cigarette. As he exhaled a much needed breath of tobacco, he decided to take the crew's mind off the depressing recording.

"It's getting pretty dark, and this place is poorly lit. Not to mention there's giant gaps in the architecture. We'd be wise to get somewhere safer if we're spending the night out here."

"Sanji's right." Robin said.

"Actually, we were going to tell you right before being attacked up here. We lucked out, and found a safehouse downstairs." Nami explained.

"This way, my friends." Brook opened a metallic door in the floor of the room's corner, and held it open for the others. They climbed down a ladder and into the darkness.

The sanctuary was several rooms wide. It looked much like the rest of the areas they had encountered, and was marked by only two large differences. The first significant difference being, that every wall, ceiling and floor was isolated with glass. The second, was that this was an honest-to-god living area.

The team had entered through a room that seemed to solely exist for the purpose of leading upstairs and downstairs. Brook secured the lock on the top entrance as a precaution, as he was last inside.

"Glass isolation. What a clever precaution. Not a single corpse in here, either. That's a good sign." Robin sounded genuinely relieved.

"Please stop talking about corpses Robin!" Chopper cried out while trying to keep up with her huge strides.

"Hey- HEY now! Don't be like that! We have feelings too!" Brook called out to the reindeer in fake anger.

Robin chuckled innocently. They had all looked over the other three rooms, which consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom, and a single bedroom filled with bunks.

She glanced over at Zoro, who was leaving to walk back to the entrance area. The others were too busy selecting where they wanted to sleep to notice as she slipped out to follow him.

Zoro took a deep breath in as he heard her close the door of the enclosure furthest from everyone else.

"Please." She said softly.

"Don't worry too much about what happened. I slipped up myse-"

"The point was for me to protect you while you did your work. I failed colossally." He didn't usually interrupt her like this.

Robin stared at him, she was still as a sculpture as she replied.

"I've had people I care about die for me before, and I barely made it through those times."

There was a silence.

She went on.

"Being the cause of someone's death makes what you have left of your life into torture."

Her voice betrayed the wound she'd hidden away the moment Sanji dropped out of the ceiling to rescue them. The searing pain wormed its way out of the depths of her.

Zoro had been grimacing more and more progressively while listening to her speak.

"Someone else's sacrifice isn't your decision to make." He was barely maintaining his calm at this point.

"In order to be the world's greatest swordsman, _you_ have to stay alive. Is the dream you and Kuina had not worth that much?"

The question hit him like a tidal wave from behind. Ruthlessly and suddenly.

He spoke louder than normal now.

"You wanna bring up history?"

His frown had grown exceptionally defined.

"I thought you respected your own dream." He added in disgust.

"...Actually, how about you show some respect for what this **CREW** CHOSE!"

He had lost control and was yelling.

"WE DIDN'T DECLARE WAR ON THE WORLD GOVERNMENT, TO HAVE YOU THROW ALL OF THAT WORK AWAY FOR ME!"

Her words were lodging in her closed up throat again, as she struggled to get them out in a louder push of speech.

"I already lost my best friend to stay alive."

She bit her lips in hesitation and fear.

"If the man I-"

He was crimson in the face by now, as he roared at her.

 **"** **DON'T SAY ANOTHER** ** _GODDAMN_** **WORD ROBIN!"**

She started again from his aggression, as his body leaned itself aggressively at her.

His voice was now thundering throughout the room.

 **"** **DON'T YOU GET IT!?"**

The daggers he was staring at her cut as deeply as his katana could.

 **"** **I FAILED AS A SWORDSMAN,** ** _AND_** **AS A MAN!"**

Robin felt too much like his enemy again.

His earings swung furiously from the bodily force with which he had yelled.

She stared at him in shock as Sanji and Luffy burst through the door.

 **"** **WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"** Sanji sternly exclaimed, albeit nowhere near as full of anger as Zoro still was.

Luffy stared at the swordsman in utter confusion and surprise. He'd never heard him scream at Robin in his life.

Zoro bellowed a response in a still grizzly tone.

"NOTHING. I WAS JUST TAKING A BREATHER."

He began ascending the ladder they arrived via, and disappeared from sight through the door again.

Nami had been standing behind the two young men at the door with her arms crossed. She looked at Robin in great concern, to whom words did not exist anymore. Only the deafening drum in her ribcage, as she came to her senses. She watched him disappear from sight once more. Her look was nearly blank, aside from the utter shock coloring her eyes.


	12. Lunch

Zoro and Robin dashed through the exit, a door identical to the last, and nearly as jammed. It contained a gap large enough for them to squeeze through.

Robin noted a broken pillar to the right, its top detatched from the ceiling.  
"Zoro! Can you cut the bottom off of this!?"

He tried not to focus on the unpleasant black wave of bugs drawing nearer with every millisecond.

"Roger that!"

The moment he finished his slash, she began pushing the pillar with all her might towards the gap in the large metal door.

"Leave that to me, go find rocks to block the top!" He took her place and pushed the heavy pillar with more success.

It didn't take long for Robin to cross her arms and start a chain of graceful arms passing large pieces of rubble towards the top of the pillar.

Zoro continued to aid her by finding another few suitably sized rocks and passing them into her phantom hands. After having handed her a few, she uttered the following:

"I think it's plugged."

The two maintained their attention on the door from a distance, still slightly winded. You can never be too careful.

"Are we sure there's not another pipeline they could get in here through?" Zoro asked.

"No…" She heaved.

"… But I don't see one yet."

Robin remembered another thing.

"The album! Do you still have it?"

He raised the item in his hand. Making the answer evident.

"I don't fancy inspecting this by flashlight. Let's find a working lamp."

The two walked on until conveniently reaching an abandoned private office, where Robin flicked the light switch on. Nothing… That was, for roughly five whole seconds. Right as they were ready to leave and keep looking, the ancient light began to flicker lazily. It gained strength gradually until they were standing inside a properly lit room. A fairly dusty one.

Zoro immediately put the album on the desk in front of them, and gave them both a look at the first few pages.

"Huh. It's pictures of the islanders." He mumbled.

"Not just islanders… There were _masses_ of people here." Robin said.

Most of the images were not so out of the ordinary. Mainly they portrayed a village of wooden houses. In a regular setting. Green grass… Sometimes accompanied, by the bizarre treelike vegetation Zoro and Robin had encountered.

Robin spoke again as she continued flipping: "That's strange… These are photos of this island. Only, there's no flowers to be seen… And the people strike me as reasonably happy." Flip.

"No photos of those beings or bugs that attacked us."

Flip…

Flip…

"Last page." Zoro frowned. More of the same mundane content. Just very day to day looking scenes. No action.

Robin thought for a second. Then put the album in her backpack and spoke.

"This seems like a good place and time to finally get that lunch we deserve. Wouldn't you say so, Zoro?"

"Mm."

He hinted a smile as she handed him a lunchbox and chopsticks. Sat himself down on the desk as she took the office chair and placed it at a conversational distance from him, dropping down into it with her food in tow she removed the lid from her bento. Her partner did not need to be told to do the same.

"Let's eat." He announced.


	13. Really Rather Disgusting

Robin collected herself as best as she could. Nami took a step toward her.

"Robin—"

She reached her hand out to touch her shoulder, but was interrupted, as she walked away and insisted:

"I'm okay."

The tall woman headed for the bathroom.

As she rinsed the edges of a dusty tub, the rusty water—untouched for who knows how long- cleared up.

She had a bar of soap tucked away in her bag… No towel.

She couldn't hear any of the others talking next door in the kitchen. Only the old, nearly jammed shower, the water pouring from out of it, and the squeakiness of her lathering her skin up.

"Do you know anything about this, Sanji-kun?" Nami couldn't rid herself of the sickly knot in her stomach.

"Only that the two of them were in real trouble when Robin-chan contacted us."

Chopper removed his hat, brushing out the freshly revealed fur atop his endearingly large head with his hoof.

His high pitched voice was taking on a stern edge again, as he tried to force himself to grow up on the spot.

"Something really bad must have happened, for Zoro to get so upset." The small doctor couldn't hide the sadness in his face.

"Yeah, he's always been hot-headed and rude, but this is… Unusual." Nami added, resisting the urge to let slip the secrets she was sitting on. She had only seen him so emotional twice before.

¨If that idiot gets himself lost and killed out there all because of a temper tantrum I'm going to kill him again myself." Sanji marched off to exit the same way as Zoro had left, for an evening smoke. Nothing else.

Nami sighed softly, and Brook had nothing to add.

Robin turned off the water, she stood in the shower quietly. Less grimy, but still exhausted.

Zoro, on the other hand—was the exact opposite of exhausted.

The anti-hero was marching the same way they came. An unyielding, temperamental inferno, burning its way back into the very science lab which had humiliated him.

A deep sense of satisfaction filled him progressively, with every step he took through the long passageway, despite the darkness of the evening obscuring his way.

Not a bug in sight, still—He couldn't help but feel like there was something he had missed last time he was inside the tomblike building. He continued walking in what he deemed to be the right direction. Of course, this meant that he found himself somewhere entirely new, and previously undiscovered.


	14. You Can't Do this

Zoro punched his own negativity in the face while standing perfectly still. His senses fully focusing on what he could do to help… _Her._

Her eyes were tightly shut and sweat was rolling down her skin from exertion.

 _Think._ He urged himself.

Robin's upper lip was lifting into a desperate snarl.

 _Think dammit._

Hana Hana fruit spawn tightening around them, she kept her phantom limbs firmly sealed against each other.. Not a bug had entered their flesh cage, which was slowly turning into something more akin to a sarcophagus.

"Zoro…" She managed.

His pen point pupils fixed themselves on hers, as his body was being forced intimately toward hers by their shrinking sanctuary.

Zoro was contemplating what the best way to fling himself over her would be in a last and desperate attempt to shield her from the potentially lethal insects.

To his surprise, she created a peephole in front of their faces.

His startled grunt was followed by him piecing the puzzle together.

"I'm sorry…"

Robin's walls came down simultaneously, and in a burst of adrenaline the swordsman let go of his sword handle, catching her carefully in his arms before harm could come to her.

He couldn't help a feeling of gust of déjà vu, a token from their first adventure together.

"Robin!"

He looked up to see again, what she had shown him before burning out.

A gargantuan variety of the creatures they had encountered earlier. As if acting as a single sentient entity, the bugs had given up on penetrating Robin's improvised walls. Instead, they had assembled into a powerful monstrosity.

A dark blur of bugs that had seamlessly arranged themselves into a thickly built humanoid creature… It had no face, but it was clearly ripping its anatomical properties off an androgynous man.

It approached them with infantile coordination, and a heavy, deep, echoing set of footsteps getting louder.

Zoro leaned Robin against a large chunk of rubble carefully, she adjusted herself slightly to escape discomfort. Not a second later his swords were out, and he had leapt into the air to slash the impending threat straight through its middle.

Although the thing did lose perhaps an inch of its height, the bug units compensated the damage by simply re-assimilating. The thing was getting far too close to his incapacitated partner for his liking. Then he remembered…

 _The control panel._

He rushed toward her and scooped her up, then- as the hideous insect being lunged at them while it swayed from side to side like a drunken wrestler- he sprinted, Robin in tow.

He made his way across the room back to where he had spotted it. Eased Robin's long legs onto the ground carefully while maintaining a firm grip with his other arm around her waist. His focused hands flicking at the dusty screen, searching for the button text he had seen earlier.

Noted a bar that said:

 _[TUBE STATUS: CLEAR]_

Before hitting his target.

[ _OPEN TUBE]_

With a mechanical hissing sound, it did just that. Without a moment to lose the swordsman started to drag one drowsy damsel into the space.

Before he could let go of her she spoke near his neck, a little stronger than when she had collapsed.

"No, you are not going out there by yourself! I can seal us both in here!" She demanded.

The thing was catching up to them again. He growled at her.

"LET ME BUY US SOME TIME!"

Even in her exhaustion, her arms were locked around his neck very persistently and he was having trouble removing her.

Her throat closed up. He felt her heart pound through her skin.

"No."

Robin shook her head desperately.

"No, no. No."

She shuddered, turned red in frustration and disappointment.

Tears streaked their way down her face.

"You can't do this." She cried.

The shout turned to a whimper.

"Not you too."

"Not again."

"Zoro."

He took hold of her wrists and detached her from him. Holding them midair briefly, like two fragile birds. Just enough pressure to keep them still without hurting them.

"I'm begging you!"

Zoro frowned again, his eyes shut, there were so many things he could have said.

Instead, he cupped her face in his hands and with his eyes still sealed tight, pressed his nose into the the crook of her cheek roughly. A flash of searing heat spread through his face to accompany hers.

He looked into her eyes, which were now puffy and helpless. His were dressed in self-assurance and a warrior's promise, as he backed away from her and sealed the tube, leaving her safely behind.


	15. Damn it Robin!

A newfound fury arose as he tied his bandana around his head.

Robin watched him stride farther away.

She had to pull herself together so she could watch his back somehow. Even if it was from afar, from a damned glass prison.

Zoro readied his swords, tensing his neck, as he launched himself at the haggard mass again.

He wasn't about to repeat the same move and expect a different outcome. Which is why the swashbuckling rogue opted for more numerous, albeit less powerfully loaded slashes. He danced his way between the bug-giant, but had to back away when dozens of the things attempted to climb up his leg.

 _These sure as hell aren't lucky ladybugs…_ He thought to himself, after having glimpsed a few with neon patches of color on them pattering after him. He slashed a line of them to mush on the stone floor.

He was no biologist, but he was smart enough to know that brightly colored insects usually meant business.

Robin's panic was not subsiding much, but she _had_ remembered that she had some tools at her disposal. Therefore, she had pulled out the transponder snail and was dialing the person she knew would find them without fail.

Zoro rolled away as a gigantic blunt ended bug arm pounded at him.

"You're damn ugly, but I gotta hand it to ya. You're a fast learner." He smirked, Wado Ichimonji securely lodged in his mouth.

Another parade of bugs was running, and even flying towards him.

 ** _KOKUJO: O TATSUMAKI!_**

He bellowed, while spinning himself into a protective tornado. The attack managed to shred a fair few creatures flying and crawling at him.

The bug amalgam had caught onto the fact.

He stopped spinning a few seconds later when he noticed… It wasn't sending anything else after him. In fact, the space surrounding Zoro was empty. The dizziness wore off the moment he realized what his target was doing.

 _"ROBIN!"_

A deafening **BASH** could be heard from across the room as it slammed its fist into her glass tank. Thankfully, the glass held up against the impact. The abomination was preparing itself for another hit, but got destabilized by Zoro slashing it three ways again as he bounced back away from it.

He continued cutting through the neatly assembeled bugs persistently and repeatedly, until a few made their way onto his leg.

 _SHIT_

He backed away and slashed them to mush with his blades before they could get onto the fabric of his yukata.

He started another tornado attack, and the bugs—having learned their lesson—flew far away, flocking to the edges of the large room.

"ZORO!" Robin yelled at him, somewhat aggressively.

She crossed her hands over her chest, and grew an arm with an eye centered in its palm onto the control panel in front of her.

 **"GET IN HERE. NOW!"**

He was recovering again from having spun himself into a sickly feeling, and was willing to admit to himself he had run out of ideas. Still he hesitated.

Robin's new hand opened the capsule again.

 **"DAMN IT ROBIN!"**

He hesitated, but as the bugs began returning toward them while she was exposed, his options were few and meager.

Zoro stuck his swords back in their sheathes, then sprinted his way over and gave in.

She pressed [ CLOSE CAPSULE ] the moment he had fully made it into the space.

Just as three mosquitos were about to land on her artificial index and pinkie fingers, they were met with a disappointing dissolution of her hand into a drifting cloud of flower petals.

The overly intelligent cloud of bugs was back to becoming solid. As its enraged, and more clearly defined than earlier shape launched itself into the glass tube with fervor again, Zoro instinctively threw himself over Robin, who was half leaning her back against the tube—If he couldn't kill the threat, he could at the very least attempt to save her from the incoming blows.

Although invisible to him while his back was facing the commotion, he heard that the casing had begun to crack slightly.

As the terrible attacker continued pounding at the only barrier between the two unmistakably close pirates… Robin put her arms around his torso and squeezed with the strength she had left in her. Zoro put his hand over the back of her head as she leaned it onto his collar. His other arm wrapped around her back and pressed her close.

Another splitting noise, the crack had grown onto about half the glass tank. The two heartbeats inside were synchronized and both speeding up hastily.

She looked back up, her eyes wide, fixating on his stern expression. It looked softer than usual as her already overwhelmed body produced a burst of powerful, bitter euphoria. The glass cracked again.


	16. Fury

Robin attempted again to grow a layer of arms as an obstacle block in front of the man sheltering her beneath his form. It was no use. Her unusually strong exhaustion left the limbs evaporating moments after appearing.

Just as the covert lovers had resigned themselves to fate, and as a daddy longlegs crawled its way through a chink in the glass towards their feet, they—Along with their attacker, were startled by the sound of something running loudly through the ventilation system above them.

This was followed by the sound of the familiar voice of a black suit-clad man as he dropped with a loud THUMP out of the ceiling vent.

He had found them.

 **"ROBIN-CHWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAAAAAAAN"**

He cried, as the two other straw hats in the room stared at him in surprise.

Sanji quickly put two and two together. A look of displeasure and disgust washed over him instantaneously.

He stared at the horrible captor of his friends.

 **"You DARE frighten a powerful MARVEL of a lady so awfully that she would turn on a homing signal and call for help?"**

The creature attempted to send more of its components through the cracks of the tube, but was now stopped by Zoro sticking a sword/blade through the chink with precision and piercing the monster again.

It decided instead to lunge at the new arrival.

Sanji was beside himself with anger for several different reasons. Some of which he would address later. Before anyone was the wiser his black leg was ablaze, and he was sending a wave of flames at the insect mountain.

The insects died instantly with every wave of fire they were met with, and many waves there were. The cook leapt through the air, move after move he roasted the monster. Knocking flaming bugs all over the area, some of which had the good self-preservation instincts to run away entirely.

In less than a minute, Sanji had disposed of the life threatening atrocity completely.

This left Zoro simultaneously incredibly relieved and immeasurably irritated.

Additionally, locked somewhere in the deepest depths of him- behind the door of a psychological safe, with dozens of security codes, complex keyholes and fingerprint identifications- was a knowledge. This was the knowledge that his mood was beginning to match his hair and yukata too much to be funny. He would not _even_ at gunpoint—have admitted the cruel cosmic irony of the situation.

Sanji stomped on a pile of charred bug corpses in spite he added insult to injury by throwing his still-lit cigarette butt on top of it, resulting in a small bonfire.

"Oi oi, don't poison everyone in the room with fumes!" Zoro shouted, as Robin opened their chamber once again, this time using only a weakened devil's fruit finger.

Sanji ignored the unacceptable man for a moment and walked over to the floor beneath the vent he had fallen from.

"Chopper! The coast is clear. Come on, I've got you."

He held his arms out, and as promised, caught the significantly smaller straw-hat jumping down from a comparatively uncomfortably high up ceiling.

The moment Chopper had landed he ran as fast as he could towards his other friends.

"YOU GUYS! You're OKAY!" He shrieked, eyes watering slightly.

Zoro was approaching him too, carrying the archeologist in his arms. Her muscles were giving out increasingly and she was sweating far too much for his liking.

"Chopper, have a look at Robin. She's not herself."

The reindeer quickly wiped his eyes on his forearm, nodded his head, and adopted a very serious and determined expression. He took his rucksack off and dug through it, beginning his work as Zoro removed the woman's own backpack, placing it next to her while leaving her carefully to rest on the laboratory floor.

In order not to disturb the doctor, the swordsman opted for the uncomfortable act of walking up to the chef.

Sanji had lit a new cigarette and inhaled it deeply. A second later he swung his leg at Zoro's midsection. He managed to catch it in his grip and hold it midair before the blonde combatant yanked it away again.

Sanji's red face screamed at a volume that was trying its best not to disturb an already agonized Robin.

 _"HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? Ya' GOD-DAMNED BIRD-BRAINED MARIMO!"_

It was still rather loud.

Zoro had nothing to say, his scowl took the place of a sentence as he stared Sanji down as best as he could.

He couldn't.

The spiraly eyebrowed man before him was matching his intensity as usual. So he decided not to care anymore, because he had to do something with the excessive burst of rage building in him.

Zoro's uncontrollable anger was no good for spar.

His coping method began by eliminating the door that had trapped him and Robin in the room in one powerful movement.

He went instead to cut a gigantic gash in a nearby wall.

He cut it again.

And again.

And again, and again, andagain and againandagain.

He then sheathed his swords and punched it, his knuckles trickled with a gentle stream of red. Fist remaining clenched.

He had no retort up his sleeve for Sanji.

No excuses.

No self-pity.

Just pure,

silent,

unbridled anger.


	17. Foul Aquatic Moss Scum

"Chopper! How's it going over there?" Sanji turned away from the empty doorway through which Zoro had walked, and focused on his other friends.

The reindeer was tilting Robin's head carefully so she could swallow a medicinal concoction he had put together.

"Still hard to say for sure! I found out what's wrong! Looks like a particularly nasty poisonous insect bit her." He wiped the corners of her mouth with a small handkerchief.

"It's lucky I got here now, or the damage to her nervous system may have gotten really bad!"

The doctor was trying to suppress the way his voice quivered with upset at the delivery of the last bit of information, masking his fear with a furrowed brow. Like a man! Like…

Zoro walked back into the room toward them.

Sanji, unable to contain himself hurled another verbal accusation at his crewmate:

"YOU…"

"… It's not enough that Robin-chwan almost got seriously hurt."

Sanji locked gazes with the man.

"I SAW WHAT YOU DID you FOUL sea moss SCUM."

"What the hell are you talking about shit-cook?" The scowling Zoro had calmed down somewhat at this point. Enough to not murder the punk, at least.

"COPPING A FEEL OFF A LADY, WHEN SHE'S IN HARM'S WAY?!" He screamed. "YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST LAY HANDS ON ~MADAME~ WHENEVER THERE'S SOME TROUBLE?" Small infernos blazed in his eyes as he prepared himself for another attack on his ally.

Chopper gasped audibly.

"I WAS SHIELDING HER FROM THE BUGS YOU PROJECTION-PRONE PERVERT." Zoro's neck muscles tensed angrily, in disbelief, as his face turned intensely red.

He unsheathed two of his swords.

Some intense spar-fighting ensued, and stopped. The two looked over in surprise and relief as Robin pulled herself up by the arms. They were taken off guard by her revitalized voice.

"I haven't gotten to share my rune translations with you all yet."

"ROBIN-CHWAN! YOU'RE OKAY!" Sanji wobbled across the room to her characteristically as she smiled with her eyes at him, then at the doctor, and gently at Zoro.

"I can assure both you and Chopper that our resident warrior's manners have been perfectly in order. In fact I probably owe him my life again."

Zoro relaxed.

"We're very grateful to you two as well."

She was amused as always at Chopper's ill-contained joy-dance response.

" _PShs, hearing you say that doesn't mean anything at all!"_ He flailed a hoof at her dismissively with a huge grin plastered on his face.

"You don't look like you don't care." The other two said flatly in unison.

"Shall we unravel this Island's secrets?" Robin was opening up her notebook.

The three of them gathered around her.

"If my translation is correct, it goes something like this…" She dragged an index finger across her findings as she read:

" _After a devastating war between two clans over this bountiful land, the island became a charred husk of what it used to be. Scientists deployed the largest ecosystem of insects ever artificially imported onto the area in an attempt to fertilize the top soil. It was a success, but…"_

Robin stopped reading.

"…Unfortunately, the writing cuts off short here. In fact the carving of the last character is irregular, it looks almost as if the person's work was disrupted. Perhaps they were assaulted in the middle of their work."

"Robin-CHWAN! You did this WITHIN A FEW HOURS? You're amazing!" Sanji's eyes had evolved into metaphorical heart shapes.

"That definitely explains the abundance of them… But not the freak abilities of the things." Zoro responded.

"What's our next move?" The doctor asked.

"Well, it's been a while since anyone heard from the rest of the crew. We ought to see what they're up to." Sanji said, and lit a new cigarette.


	18. Too Quiet

Franky and Usopp were done upgrading the deck and were cracking some beers open.

Luffy's team however, was off the grid for some reason.

"They're not picking up the den-den-mushi." Chopper looked at the snail in his hoof with alarm.

"Beacon's not working either." Zoro added.

"I hope they haven't been incapacitated and eaten alive by the swarms." Robin said with a note of concern.

"ROBIN! STOP IT, YOU'RE SCARY!" Chopper cried.

"That'd be funnier if it wasn't plausible. In Nami's case at least." Zoro said.

Sanji startled at the last segment of the phrase.

"Which is why we've no time to lose!" He started looking for an exit.

"I swear, if anything happens to Nami-swan because of this Island I'll set the whole damn place on fire!"

He looked in every direction furiously and muttered:

"Honestly, can't trust Luffy OR Brook to be mindful of an enigmatic _cutie's_ needs! Why did I ever let her venture out with them?"

He grumbled again as he inspected a wall of mysterious looking ancient buttons.

"An animated corpse and a rubber adrenaline junkie, with Nami-swan in their custody?! If she comes back with as much as one _SCRATCH_ I sw-"

Zoro cut through the huge door that'd shut him and Robin in. He had been aching to take revenge on this one as well. The adrenaline still had his heartrate up as he re-sheathed his swords.

Sanji dashed toward the exit, but stopped in his tracks when Robin shouted at him to be careful.

"We've been grappling with more than a few traps in here. You two are lucky that vent wasn't host to any."

She had pulled her flashlight back out, to do a thorough check on the walls, floor, and finally ceiling ahead of them.

"The coast looks clear."

The moment she finished her sentence Zoro had pushed his way out into the corridor.

At the end of the dark walkway, the four of them found nothing but a spiral staircase, and a lot of spider webs.

Robin picked up a long slab of broken concrete, and wound a fair amount of the webs up, removing the obstacles as they ascended. She lit up their perilous climb up dilapidated steps with her flashlight.

The others picked up a piece of rubble each, and passed each one up to her as she cleared the way gradually.

The further up they got, the fresher the air became. The room they found at the top of the stairs was host to a thick wooden door.

"Locked." Sanji said.

He'd barely stepped away from it when Zoro was slashing through it.

"OI YOU DON'T NEED TO KILL ME TO DO THAT!"

The swordsman acted as if he hadn't heard a thing, as he walked through the exit and onto a long walkway.

Robin took her place walking beside him, Sanji and Chopper followed closely behind them. All of them tuned their ears just in case. Sanji glanced over his shoulder now and then.

To both the stress and relief to the straw hat subdivision, the entire walk through the long, airy tunnel was quiet and uneventful.

Sanji narrowed his eyes, noticing the two in front of him were walking somewhat closer to each other than usual. He found it an especially notable coincidence in combination with what he had seen in the glass tube, and the Sunny dining area.

A new feeling of nausea collected in his gut atop of his concern for Nami.

He was no fool, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions either.


	19. Reunion

The team of four had—at the end of the long passage—found an entrance to a new building similar to the last. To the relief of every single straw hat, they could hear familiar laughter, and muffled music through the walls.

Chopper called out what they were all thinking in unison.

"Luffy! Brook!"

They ran toward the sound, past doorways, walls and various undiscernible objects.

Finally they arrived to find that it was indeed their captain, launching a group of incoming bug monsters into the sky using his abilities. He'd just taken his regular shape again after having made himself into a stretched out shape. His frame was silhouetted against the evening sky, and he was laughing like a maniac.

"LUFFY!" Zoro hollered from across the room.

The young rubber man spun his head around unnaturally.

"ZORO!" He beamed. Then noticed everyone else.

"GUYS!" He beamed even harder.

Nami and brook were not far from him, the two were safe inside a rectangular glass enclosure. Brook was indeed the source of the merry tune they'd followed, him and Nami lit up as well as they noticed their friends.

"NAMI-SWANN! THANK GOD!" Sanji floated over to his imaginary girlfriend.

"It seems like the coast is clear. It's good to know you're all safe." Robin said warmly.

Chopper happily went to push a nearby button and open the glass shelter.

"What happened to your signal? We tried to call several times, but all we got was static!" The reindeer asked.

As the skeleton and the red-head walked over to everyone else, Nami produced a glowing, bizarre device, much like the style of the catacomb the other group of straw hats had come out of.

"It might have something to do with this thing. It's sending out bizarre waves of some kind."

To demonstrate, she took out the tracking device Franky had given her, and slowly dragged the new gadget close to it. As she did so, the small screen on the tracker turned into a mess of noisy squiggles, and returned to normal as she brought the thing further away.

"Nami. Have you tried using it?" Luffy asked.

"No, and we ought to be _careful_ because who _KNOWS_ what it can do and what it's –"

Before she could finish the captain had pushed a button in its side without her permission.

"LUFFYYYYYYYYY! I swear to GO—" Nami was this time interrupted by noise coming from the mysterious item.

It began with tons of static, which continued to interlace with the aged recording as a voice spoke.

 ** _"The war left no survivors from what we can tell._**

 ** _*HZZT* scene we found was one straight from the depths of hell, in fact. This geographical intiative was funded by the world government. I do admire their *ZZTT*ermination. I know they wanted the mess that was Eden Isle cleaned u*ZBZBZBSDHF*…. *ZZJJZK*nd the bugs worked for that, but what we hadn't ***ticipated waszz *he presence of that damned amalgam fruit. We had even less of a clue the thing would be devoured eagerly by the insects… I've been trying to f****re out why they're attacking the l*ving, with little to no success. Not sure if **s expedition was worth it… Starting to miss my local pub."_**

 ** _"… I may be a man who doesn't care much about his own life, but ******! We lost Brown just *BZZZT*other day."_**

 ** _There was a long pause._**

 ** _"How do you explain that to someone's wife and kids? Died in the name of science?"_**

 ** _…_**

 ** _"As if that makes it any better."_**

The crew was silent for a moment. Right until Zoro spoke up.

"Should've guessed it was a devil's fruit at work."


	20. Wounded Swordsman

Sanji was lighting a fresh cigarette. As he exhaled a much needed breath of tobacco, he decided to take the crew's mind off the depressing recording.

"It's getting pretty dark, and this place is poorly lit. Not to mention there's giant gaps in the architecture. We'd be wise to get somewhere safer if we're spending the night out here."

"Sanji's right." Robin said.

"Actually, we were going to tell you right before being attacked up here. We lucked out, and found a safehouse downstairs." Nami explained.

"This way, my friends." Brook opened a metallic door in the floor of the room's corner, and held it open for the others. They climbed down a ladder and into the darkness.

The sanctuary was several rooms wide. It looked much like the rest of the areas they had encountered, and was marked by only two large differences. The first significant difference being, that every wall, ceiling and floor was isolated with glass. The second, was that this was an honest-to-god living area.

The team had entered through a room that seemed to solely exist for the purpose of leading upstairs and downstairs. Brook secured the lock on the top entrance as a precaution, as he was last inside.

"Glass isolation. What a clever precaution. Not a single corpse in here, either. That's a good sign." Robin sounded genuinely relieved.

"Please stop talking about corpses Robin!" Chopper cried out while trying to keep up with her huge strides.

"Hey- HEY now! Don't be like that! We have feelings too!" Brook called out to the reindeer in fake anger.

Robin chuckled innocently. They had all looked over the other three rooms, which consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom, and a single bedroom filled with bunks.

She glanced over at Zoro, who was leaving to walk back to the entrance area. The others were too busy selecting where they wanted to sleep to notice as she slipped out to follow him.

Zoro took a deep breath in as he heard her close the door of the enclosure furthest from everyone else.

"Please." She said softly.

"Don't worry too much about what happened. I slipped up myse-"

"The point was for me to protect you while you did your work. I failed colossally." He didn't usually interrupt her like this.

Robin stared at him, she was still as a sculpture as she replied.

"I've had people I care about die for me before, and I barely made it through those times."

There was a silence.

She went on.

"Being the cause of someone's death makes what you have left of your life into torture."

Her voice betrayed the wound she'd hidden away the moment Sanji dropped out of the ceiling to rescue them. The searing pain wormed its way out of the depths of her.

Zoro had been grimacing more and more progressively while listening to her speak.

"Someone else's sacrifice isn't your decision to make." He was barely maintaining his calm at this point.

"In order to be the world's greatest swordsman, _you_ have to stay alive. Is the dream you and Kuina had not worth that much?"

The question hit him like a tidal wave from behind. Ruthlessly and suddenly.

He spoke louder than normal now.

"You wanna bring up history?"

His frown had grown exceptionally defined.

"I thought you respected your own dream." He added in disgust.

"...Actually, how about you show some respect for what this **CREW** CHOSE!"

He had lost control and was yelling.

"WE DIDN'T DECLARE WAR ON THE WORLD GOVERNMENT, TO HAVE YOU THROW ALL OF THAT WORK AWAY FOR ME!"

Her words were lodging in her closed up throat again, as she struggled to get them out in a louder push of speech.

"I already lost my best friend to stay alive."

She bit her lips in hesitation and fear.

"If the man I-"

He was crimson in the face by now, as he roared at her.

 **"** **DON'T SAY ANOTHER** ** _GODDAMN_** **WORD ROBIN!"**

She started again from his aggression, as his body leaned itself aggressively at her.

His voice was now thundering throughout the room.

 **"** **DON'T YOU GET IT!?"**

The daggers he was staring at her cut as deeply as his katana could.

 **"** **I FAILED AS A SWORDSMAN,** ** _AND_** **AS A MAN!"**

Robin felt too much like his enemy again.

His earings swung furiously from the bodily force with which he had yelled.

She stared at him in shock as Sanji and Luffy burst through the door.

 **"** **WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"** Sanji sternly exclaimed, albeit nowhere near as full of anger as Zoro still was.

Luffy stared at the swordsman in utter confusion and surprise. He'd never heard him scream at Robin in his life.

Zoro bellowed a response in a still grizzly tone.

"NOTHING. I WAS JUST TAKING A BREATHER."

He began ascending the ladder they arrived via, and disappeared from sight through the door again.

Nami had been standing behind the two young men at the door with her arms crossed. She looked at Robin in great concern, to whom words did not exist anymore. Only the deafening drum in her ribcage, as she came to her senses. She watched him disappear from sight once more. Her look was nearly blank, aside from the utter shock coloring her eyes.


	21. Water

Robin collected herself as best as she could. Nami took a step toward her.

"Robin—"

She reached her hand out to touch her shoulder, but was interrupted, as she walked away and insisted:

"I'm okay."

The tall woman headed for the bathroom.

As she rinsed the edges of a dusty tub, the rusty water—untouched for who knows how long- cleared up.

She had a bar of soap tucked away in her bag… No towel.

She couldn't hear any of the others talking next door in the kitchen. Only the old, nearly jammed shower, the water pouring from out of it, and the squeakiness of her lathering her skin up.

"Do you know anything about this, Sanji-kun?" Nami couldn't rid herself of the sickly knot in her stomach.

"Only that the two of them were in real trouble when Robin-chan contacted us."

Chopper removed his hat, brushing out the freshly revealed fur atop his endearingly large head with his hoof.

His high pitched voice was taking on a stern edge again, as he tried to force himself to grow up on the spot.

"Something really bad must have happened, for Zoro to get so upset." The small doctor couldn't hide the sadness in his face.

"Yeah, he's always been hot-headed and rude, but this is… Unusual." Nami added, resisting the urge to let slip the secrets she was sitting on. She had only seen him so emotional twice before.

¨If that idiot gets himself lost and killed out there all because of a temper tantrum I'm going to kill him again myself." Sanji marched off to exit the same way as Zoro had left, for an evening smoke. Nothing else.

Nami sighed softly, and Brook had nothing to add.

Robin turned off the water, she stood in the shower quietly. Less grimy, but still exhausted.

Zoro, on the other hand—was the exact opposite of exhausted.

The anti-hero was marching the same way they came. An unyielding, temperamental inferno, burning its way back into the very science lab which had humiliated him.

A deep sense of satisfaction filled him progressively, with every step he took through the long passageway, despite the darkness of the evening obscuring his way.

Not a bug in sight, still—He couldn't help but feel like there was something he had missed last time he was inside the tomblike building. He continued walking in what he deemed to be the right direction. Of course, this meant that he found himself somewhere entirely new, and previously undiscovered.


	22. Man-to-Man

Zoro slashed another door in half. He kicked an old broken shelf out of the way, and was pleased with what greeted him from behind it.

"An armory…" He flashed a somewhat evil smile, as he continued holding up a burning piece of wood he had lit with a match. Despite his wound up mood as he stormed out of the glass shelter, he'd been maintained enough sense in him to grab one of the matchboxes laying on the kitchen table.

The walls of the small enclosure were lined with identical, unusual guns.

"Goddamned bird-brained Swordsbastard." Irritated Sanji murmured, as he ran into the science lab.

There were definitely some fresh footprints in the dust of the floor. He used the flashlight he'd borrowed off Nami to jog through the rest of the dark, following the steps.

"Please don't be upset with me, Nami-Swan… Robin-Chwan…" He continued into the unpleasantly quiet void, shining the light right and left. "If what I think is going on, is going on… I have to do what I have to do!"

Zoro inspected the end of one of the weapons from a few steps away.

"A canister?"

A fairly large one at that. Strapped to each and every one of the guns. The top of it had a cap in it, through which to fill the contraption. The question was… With what, exactly.

"OI, Marimo!"

Zoro whipped around to see his blonde crewmate.

"Shit-Cook. What are you doing here?"

He walked up in annoyance and stood next to the green man.

" _Me?!_ If I didn't come after you you'd wander off to the other side of the planet. What the hell are **YOU** doing walking away from everybody on your own like an idiot?"

Sanji casually tried yanking one of the guns in front of him off the wall, but the moment it came off its handle, the entire wall of guns rotated upwards, along with the segment of floor the two men were standing on.

One summersault-tumble and several bruises later, they were on the floor of a different room.

Zoro shoved Sanji's face unkindly away from him as he got back up. The cook had fallen too close to him for his liking. He didn't manage to do so without Sanji yanking him down on his ass by the yukata in revenge. The two continued childishly horsing around, until a few all-too-bright spotlights in the room flickered on a few seconds later.

"Where the hell are we?" Zoro uttered the rhetorical question, wincing, as he pretended he knew what any of the apparatus around him was.

Sanji dusted his expensive suit off, and was just as confused.

"I don't know. In fact, I'm not sure I care until you tell me what the hell is happening with you and Robin."

The swordsman froze in surprise.

He said nothing, as scanned a work-table in the now-brighter room.

"I was surprised to see you both acting like you did on the ship earlier, but there's only so much I can shrug off." The blonde had circled his way around Zoro, his hands still in his black pants as he did so. "Oi. At least tell me _something._ " The two men were staring one another down in a bright patch of room. The darkness of the room's edges seemed to close in on Zoro as absolutely nothing came to him. His mind was- as of this moment- actually blank, the way the chef loved to insinuate.

He fished a sentence out of himself with difficulty.

"It's between me and her."

"Yeah no duh."

Zoro crossed his arms in front of himself, while staring into space instead of Sanji's insistent expression as he said:

"You're embarrassing yourself. Just drop it."

"Suit yourself numbnuts, but I'm more versed in matters of women's hearts than you. I thought maybe I could offer you some kind of help."

Zoro pouted angrily, and walked away to look at a map of the island on the wall. After a moment of silence, he said:

"This might interest Nami."

"While that _is_ true, and I _am_ taking it with me for that very reason…" Sanji pulled the map from its frame, rolled it up and tucked it inside his dress shirt carefully. "You're changing the subject you shithead!"

As he did so, Zoro responded to his question. To Sanji's surprise.

"I'm still… Making sense, of my issue with Robin."

The chef was still rolling the map up to put in the pocket of his jacket.

"Not giving me much to work with, but I can't force you to tell me about it. Suit yourself."

Sanji exhaled in indignation, and then added:

"Agh god, I can't believe I'm saying this to you of all people."

Sanji inhaled a defeated breath. " _With the way she's been looking at you_ , I wouldn't be too worried about gaining her favor." He had hoped to god in secret that Robin's looks of affection were her usual style of maternal display. A show of protectiveness… Or camaraderie.

Zoro's heart skipped a beat.

He wondered again why he kept having reactions like this. He was highly alarmed how obsessive he was. The euphoria and fuzzy… Uh… Whatever the heck she was eliciting, was interesting, thrilling even. Fun.

The lack of control however, was something he really was not here for. Especially the constant, near insane inability to escape images of her which his brain was feeding him. Her gestures, even her style of walk. His consciousness was a long audio compilation of things she'd said. How her name being spoken by other people immediately got his attention. The way her laughter felt like it was him laughing. His blood ran hot around her, but he didn't even feel angry. It was something else entirely.

Something disgusting. He needed more of it.

Robin had become a drug the likes of which there was no rehabilitation from. He'd lost his goddamned mind, and he loved it. And hated how he loved it.

Sanji went on with his monologue.

"Lemme remind you of something. I usually don't have to tell you because you know, but it's like you've forgotten for whatever reason…"

Zoro snapped out of his awkward mode of contemplation to find that he couldn't seem to move any part of his body. He listened to his annoyingly good friend.

"…Manhood isn't an absence of failure! Ok?!" Sanji yelled at him.

"It's the presence of tenacity. Which you have no problem with." He hit Zoro lightly on the back of the head. The swordsman turned his neck slightly to aim a dirty look at him.

Sanji added: "Robin's a genius, she'll know that!"

His green comrade's face softened to a miniscule degree. He inhaled.

"Let's find a way out of here." Zoro said. He'd realized what he had to do.


	23. Man-to-Woman

"Oioi wait, wait a second." Sanji called Zoro over.

"Look at this." He pointed his torch at a huge tank against a dark corner of the room.

Zoro squinted and read the text Sanji was lighting up with his flashlight. The swordsman read it out loud:

"WEAPON CHARGE STATION"

He looked back over at the gun now laying against the floor of the room they had landed in.

The swordsman picked it up, and unscrewed the top of it. He held it under a tap on the side of the tank, and turned the rusty valve nearby.

The pipes around the room gurgled, as the tank began to charge the weapon. The two men looked on in suspense, until they realized what was coming out of the tank.

"…? Water?" Sanji tilted his upper body in confusion as he stared at it.

Zoro wrinkled his forehead in slight disappointment.

The two stood there for a moment in confusion, until the green haired man understood.

In a premature wave of delight at having outwitted Sanji, he exclaimed toughly:

"I know!"

Went on to hold the gun's charge opening to his nose, sniffing it cautiously.

A big, malicious grin spread across his face.

"This isn't just regular water. It's _sea_ water."

Sanji caught on quickly, his face infected by the schadenfreude as he took the instrument from his comerade, eyeing it.

"Those bugs ate the amalgam fruit."

"Which means we gotta fill these up and hand 'em out." Zoro walked up to the wall they fallen through.

He thought for a second, then found a lever. Although he was ready to be tossed unpleasantly and grabbed onto a handle to ensure a gentler fall, all the lever did was open a new door next to the wall him and Sanji had fallen through. Relieved, he carefully walked through it back to the room shelved with guns.

After a lot of valve turning, a lot of wet hands, and after Sanji was forced to keep both eyes on his navigationally challenged brother in arms, they arrived- exhausted, back at the shelter.

Zoro was being insulted by Sanji as they walked into the kitchen, when Nami interrupted them.

"What the _hell_ have you idiots been doing out there?" She was slightly loud despite being audibly groggy.

"Do you know what time it is?!" She hissed at them, closing the door to the bedroom behind her.

She put her hands on her hips, as she tried to convince herself she wasn't hallucinating from how tired she was. They were making some pretty asinine faces. Sanji and Zoro? On the same wavelength?

"Why do you both look so satisfied? Are you two even listeni—"

"Come upstairs. Bring a few empty backpacks." Zoro said, already one foot through the exit door.

Once Nami had helped them carry the sea-weapons down into the shelter and joined in their enthusiasm, she crouched holding open a bag. Eyed the new tools at their disposal.

"We just have to be _very_ aware of the devil's fruit users on _our_ side if we're going to use these."

"Agreed." Zoro added, just as Robin walked into the room. She was wearing a fresh shirt and skirt she had packed in case of need. Her hair was still damp.

The room went completely silent, as she gently closed the door to the bedroom she asked what the commotion was about, taking care not to wake her sleeping crewmates.

"Robin-chwan, we found guns to use against the gross swarms!" Sanji's excited voice was only slightly louder than a whisper.

A hint of a smile appeared on her, as she looked at the group surrounding the backpack while actively avoiding Zoro's face.

Without warning Nami grabbed Sanji by the bend of his arm and dragged him away toward the room with the bunks inside.

"Sanji-kun! It's time we went to get some rest too."

He was far too convinced he was being flirted with, and overjoyed at her physical contact to notice Zoro was being left alone with Robin strategically.

The solemn mood was not eased by them disappearing through the door.

Familiar chestnut eyes looked into her glassy ones, as the swordsman gestured to the room furthest away from their other friends. She felt a slight relief from the absence of his usual sternly tensed brows, as she walked after him into the entrance hall.

The far less tense temperamental man sighed quietly, then turned to face her as she closed yet another door behind her.

"I can't take back the way I spoke to you earlier."

His head was lowered slightly.

"I lost control of my tone, and that shouldn't have happened."

Robin was aware that language wasn't his strongest suit, she also knew that he hated admitting he was ever wrong. Which did put into perspective how much weight the conversation had.

She waited patiently while he attempted to phrase his next sentence.

His dark eyes fixed themselves on hers momentarily again, before shifting away in hesitation.

He then turned his entire head, looking blatantly to the side in frustration. Unable to keep holding her gaze. Rubbed his hand across his lower face briefly, as if it would somehow magically untie the tongue behind his teeth.

"Dammit"

She had no response for that.

"I've never dealt with this situation before." He was getting flushed, frowny, crossed his arms in front of his chest in some kind of inexplicable agony.

He let out a brief, flustered huff as he leaned against the ladder behind him.

Robin was genuinely confused now.

"You've never been stuck in a life or death situation with a crewmate? On Luffy's crew?"

"No."

"Then what is it? Are you alright?" There was a mix of confusion and concern on her face..

He looked a little nervous suddenly. Conflicted. Was his voice shaking?

"I'm in love with you" He said.

Robin's eyes widened in disbelief.

"What?"

"..." He was blushing ferociously.

"I don't even care whether you feel the same! But I figured you should know." He looked extremely uncomfortable as he explained.

"I realized it when I went to clear my head. It's why I've been losing my mind on this island. It shouldn't have affected you negatively."

He glanced back at her and further confusion washed over him.

"Wait." he said, forgetting his own nerves as he noticed…

"Are you crying?!"

Robin laughed through the tears at the bamboozled expression on him. She inhaled and wiped her eyes.

"If you don't care whether I feel the same, I suppose there's no point in me saying it back?" She asked in a choked voice. She was smiling unbearably hard.

"Well I mean… If you _decide_ to I'll obviously listen I guess." The phrase was uttered by the swordsman with a cocky open mouth smirk.

"Well, whether you feel the same or not. I love you too." She laughed softly at the rude bastard.

 _Her_ rude bastard.

He came towards her tenderly. Mocking grin turning gradually into a genuine smile.

"Really?" He asked. The flush returning with a vengeance to his skin.

"Yes." She said.

The two had moved into each other's warm, tight embrace. His head nestled itself in her collar, his brows still tensing from all the unfamiliar sensations he was guarding against.

Zoro pressed a kiss against her lips. He pulled her against himself as she bent into his warm, firm grasp.

Strands of raven hair hung next to one side of his face, as she cradled the sides of his head in her hands, and opened her mouth slightly to let their tongues brush each other in passing.

He fought to suppress his strength as he squeezed the shape of her. Robin on the other hand, was not holding back, which he completely felt.

"Don't break my ribcage I need that to fight." He wheezed against her face, and she promptly loosened her hold.

"Sorry." He felt her cheeks push into her beautiful smile again, against his.

"What a mess of sensations. I'm annoyed." He complained half-jokingly, his deep gruff voice unusually soft and normal in pitch as he pressed his mouth against her cheek again. He followed up with a deep, hungry inhale through the nose. Her skin made his head spin.

Her slender fingers caressed his neck as she pressed her forehead against his. The heat of him was saving her from the chill of the bunker.

"Is that so?" She asked coquettishly.

"Yeah." He inhaled her scent drunkenly, dragging his hands slowly from beneath her shoulder blades, tracing their way down into the narrowest point of her _very_ appealing waist.

"Okay then, I can go if it's annoying you too much." She teased.

"No, stay." He muttered flatly and immediately, resting his head in the curve of her shoulder in defeat.

She obliged, the two blissfully feeling the synchronization of the beating in their chests. They were another secret richer, and very restless, when they ended up finally heading to bed like their exhausted friends.


	24. Rise and Shine

"I'm hungry!" Luffy whined, as he stretched himself across the table in the dim light of the bunker.

It was morning.

The group of straw hats knew this, because an all-too-energized-to-sleep-well Robin had gotten out of bed and peeked her head out of the safety hatch trapdoor, staring out through a gap in a façade of the fortress. To her great surprise and enjoyment, a gorgeously haloed rising sun had ruled the sky. As she carefully climbed up out of the bunker, she'd noted the extremely blurred nature of it, likely from the strange fog light of the island. Robin had stood gazing out across the mess of foul trees, which in the pinkish orange haze- looked rather decorative.

Zoro had been leaning against the wall of the kitchen when the love of his life returned through the door. He had been concerned with looking cool, still the joyous way her lips curled as she'd walked in on him had been infectious, and so he'd afforded himself the act of smiling at her warmly.

"Good morning" Robin had walked over briskly, enthusiastically—All while doing her damndest not to look desperate and obsessed. Giving the truth away for free like that would have been unfitting. She was a master assassin after all, with a certain degree of reputation to protect.

"Morning." He had responded, somewhat feeling like his eyes might just turn into heart shapes. The smile had hopefully been the right amount of expressive.

How uncomfortable would she be? He'd wondered. If this whole situation went public today? Despite aching for her touch, Zoro had mulled it over in his head without finding many answers. Without knowing if he ought to have pulled her towards himself again, ready to straighten up and let go if somebody had walked in.

"Did you sleep well? She had asked.

"Not bad actually."

His reply had been a cloudy blur lost amidst her thoughts, and so she had to replay the sound of his words in her mind. Search for their simple and obvious meaning.

He seized the overlong silence by the throat as soon as he noticed it:

"What about you? Sleep well?" This had been one of the few moments of the day when Zoro wasn't furrowing his brow. He had looked... Relaxed. Something which had made Robin even more pleased. How odd it was. This new existence where the happiness of other people became her own.

"Just fine." Robin had been beginning to feel silly from how persistent her grinning had become. Yet it'd become too much to even attempt suppressing. She'd been happy with the straw hats before, but her bursts of delight had been rarely so drawn out, or as glaringly written on her entire being.

She had cupped his jaw in her hand, and like a tender female giraffe- leaned herself eight centimeters lower to kiss him wholesomely on the lips. For she had known, this might be the last chance to do so for a while.

His behemoth desire for the woman before him had been large before she'd done this, but it had grown exponentially from contact with her lips. He hadn't pushed his hand against her beautiful neck, and therefore had not had the boon of feeling her healthy streaks of shining black hair or the warmth of her skin in his grip. Nor had they opened their mouthes which fit together like puzzzle pieces. He had not kissed her as deeply as would have been preferable, but he had stopped humoring his own rampant imagination, which had started feeding him flashes of rather unsavory and explicit activities. He had come to want her as badly as oxygen overnight. It was indeed cramping his very otherwise centered zen style.

Robin had leaned out of the kiss, and straightened out her dignified posture, with more blush on her cheeks than before. She enjoyed the sight of his face having turned a bright shade of tan-pink.

"Your mind went somewhere fun, huh?" She had chuckled.

"Shut up" He muttered in annoyance.

That had been before the rest of the bunker residents began filing out of the bedroom.

"Sanji….Breakfast…." The captain was performing, as though the grim reaper had come for him and he was begging for his life. Admittedly, this was quite fitting, as Brook was gazing empty-socketed at him, in what only the skeleton himself knew was a state of pity.

"I'll make it. From your carcass." Sanji muttered.

Nami was yawning as she phoned Usopp and Franky, only to find they were having a great time swimming with the fishes in the Sunny's aquarium quite literally.

The starving crewmates agreed promptly, when Chopper declared it was time to venture onward and look for something to eat. He offered them medicinal mushrooms he had picked together with Sanji as a first aid against hunger, which had few effects aside from being nutritious and good against nausea; something which Sanji was struggling with. Partly, he was highly annoyed with his captain's illogical demands. The other part of his onset of sickness arose from confusion at the fact that the archeologist and the swordsman seemed to have made up… More than made up, they seemed extremely and uncharacteristically happy standing next to each other.


	25. Game Plan

Franky peeled his goggles off his eyes to reveal his long rectangular eyelashes. The cyborg wiped some sweat off his forehead using his metal forearm. It was too early in the day to be upgrading the boiler system, he knew this. Still something about the amazing scenic sunrise on the uncanny island had lured him out of bed. _Even in the case that Usopp wants a shower, this'll take no more than five minutes. No prrrroblem babeyy!_

(It was a problem.)

Five minutes into the project his friend was walking into the room clad in nothing but a towel. Usopp's eyes were narrow as a 0.3 pencil line on a sheet of Japanese high school student paper. He screamed: "HEY DO YOU KNOW HOW FREAKIN' COLD THE SHOWER WATER IS?!".

"Ah Usopp! I'm just finishing a boiler upgra-"

"Fix it _now._ "

"OkaaaaAAAAaaaay!"

Franky had re-brokered peace by fixing his hubris-borne mistake when the sniper came out of the bathroom clean and once more donning his towel. He found his comrade talking to Robin via the communication snail in the dining room.

She sounded vivacious despite the slight static the device was undergoing.

"Yes, we found an exit through the fortress, and we appear to be back in the woods. If… That's what they can be called."

Usopp interjected: "Those bug things though, you're not afraid of getting overwhelmed by them?"

"Ah! Good morning Usopp." Her charmingly warm tone evoked the image of her smiling face.

Sanji jumped into the conversation to explain his and Zoro's adventure to the Going Sunny restricted party, in succinct form. He did it in a way that didn't particularly flatter or amuse the swordsman. His muttering curse aimed at the cook could be heard slightly farther from the microphone.

"What's your current objective?" Franky asked.

"Well, we're short on food." Said Robin.

Nami spoke into the Den Den Mushi:

"Sanji-kun brought a map back from his and Zoro's… Night excursion. Even though I have no idea what possessed them to go wandering around the lab without backup of any sort, and while I still want to KILL THESE ASSHOLES. There happened to be some incredibly useful info charted on here."

"Can we hear about this info?" Franky asked.

"Yes. We're headed southwest where there _looks_ to be a town hall with a cellar filled with provisions… Food, more specifically."

"Hmm… Sounds like there's no certainty you'll find any food there though. This place has been abandoned for a really long time, what makes you sure there'll be anything left down there?"

"We're not certain. On the other hand we're all far enough away from the ship that it'll take longer to get back to you two than it will to check this cellar. So I propose the following: We'll keep walking toward the cellar, and you and Usopp can use the tracking device to navigate towards our new location."

"Sounds good! Might be good to stay in motion anyway, what with these horrible bugs on the loose, no?"

"Yes."

"Speaking of which…" said Robin.

"…Don't let them bite you.

Usopp turned pale, as Franky bit the bait:

"What happens when they do?"

"You die." Said Robin.

Usopp developed a tremor.

"YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS ROBIN!"

Zoro leaned in toward the Den Den Mushi and added:

"Oh she's serious. In fact they can smell cowardice from a distance. It smells delicious."

"You can't just straight up make things up Zoro." Nami called his bluff.

"YOU MEAN ROBIN DIDN'T MAKE HER STATEMENT UP?!" Usopp's towel fell off while he yelled at the snail phone.

"Well, if it makes you feel better the death is slow and uncomfortable." Robin said, she was relatively unphased by the concept as usual.

"What she's trying to say, Usopp…" Chopper had motioned for the tall lady to lower the microphone for him. "Is that it would take several hours for the venom to take full effect. So the moment you notice symptoms like nausea, fever, headache, and or faintness you should call us and let me know immediately. That way I can give you the antidote ASAP!

"I developed all those symptoms right as you listed them. COME BACK TO FRANKY AND ME, CHOPPER!"

Sanji bent down to Chopper's height for the sake of clarity:

"He can't, not until you two get the ship further up the northeast coast of this weirdo island."

"Then I guess we'd better get this baby moving, and I guess you'd better cover your privates up huh Usopp?"

All the crewmates on the other side of the phone looked at each other in confusion and surprise. Brook was the only one who articulated what they were all thinking. Namely the phrase "What?!".

"My towel fell down, I just had a shower. You can calm down Brook."

"Ah, okay then. You had me there for a second because who even knows what Franky is into."

"Lemme know if you ever wanna know! OWW." The cyborg robot did a provocative hip swinging dance move as per usual.

Robin got angry. "Chopper is _right_ here."

"And what about it? What's Franky into?" The reindeer's huge eyes glistened in sheer curiosity.

"Uhh… It's not relevant right now! Okay, nice chat. See you guys soon!" Franky turned the phone off.


	26. Scenery

The ravenous mass hissed violently, as an animated sculpture of bugs fizzled away from the contact with seawater. He had just tried his newly acquired seawater weapon on it.

"Zoro… Does it feel odd? To use a gun instead of a sword?"

Chopper felt his voice ebb, in a feeble manner into the gigantic foggy planes. It seemed to never end on each side, one vast horizon of dead, hard packed soil, which was very slowly turning back into the fluffier, more fertile insect packed variety.

"Nah."

Brook, Luffy, Chopper and Robin were walking in the center of the ring formation, surrounded by their other crewmates, all of which had an anti-devil's fruit weapon each. The crewmates moved below their regular speed, on account of the people standing at the back having to walk backwards, and at a slight angle, to keep from being surprised from the back.

Zoro decided to elaborate on his curt answer to his reindeer friend.

"These guys are completely uninteresting to duel. Might as well get rid of them and go find better opponents asap."

Nami squirted a stream of water at another incoming monster, this time shaped like a bull.

"HAH! Take that."

The large being melted away completely with progressive attacks.

"I can see why Usopp likes that slingshot so much." She beamed, slightly mean, slightly proud.

Robin felt the tension from earlier evaporate from her being. Although a new sense of unease,

small… Like a mouse—had smuggled its way into her.

Mice are generally harmless. Of course, here the problem was that she didn't- As of this moment- feel like a body of flesh, blood and heat. She might have been a supercomputer made up of wires… Rodent teeth did not mix well with her internal processing.

"Hey."

Her crewmates tilted their heads slightly toward her, as if to pick up the ringing phone.

"…Isn't it somewhat strange? The fact that they're evaporating… But more of them keep coming?"

"Perhaps it's best not to look a gift horse in the mouth… But that did cross my mind too, Robin-san." Said Brook.

"It's ominous, and it's all the more reason to get the hell outta here." Said Sanji.

The devil's fruit monster attacks decreased in frequency, which made the crew comfortable enough to walk in a more regular line formation eventually.

An indefinite amount of time later, the starving straw hats saw their first trace of hope in several hours. The fog had long since faded entirely, and lead them through the same manner of dense flowery fields as they had landed in while arriving on the island.

They had slowly been walking at an upwards incline of bouncy flowerbed for a few minutes when their captain grew restless. Before anybody had time or energy to stop him, Luffy sprinted as far as he could, to the edge of what he noticed in time was a steep edge.

"Whooh! That was a close one." He wiped his forehead, reeling from the sensation of his starvation mixing together with the adrenaline of almost tumbling down a steep incline of a cliff.

 **"** **GUYS! IT'S THE VILLAGE!"**

As the rest of his band of starving adventurers caught up, they noticed he was right. They also saw that the coastline below was swarming with navy officers, and a few of their ships. They shouted at Luffy unison, albeit more quietly than the enthusiastic rubber man had himself.

"KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN, YOU'LL DRAW THEIR ATTENTION!"


	27. Stealth Operation

"Luffy. Let me put this in a way that'll get through your thick head and deep into your subconscious." Nami managed, despite now being weaker bodied than normal, and her tone of voice being softer and quieter.

He blinked, dazed as he stared at the baby blue sky. He'd fallen on his back into the terrain, which now only contained flowers partially, it had begun to mix into a more and more mountainous, rocky texture. His hungry crew stood behind him, many of them vexed.

Nami inhaled, collecting herself as best as she could.

"If the navy spots you…"

Despite the deep breath, something snapped inside and she broke into a loud growl, shaking her captain by the shoulders, swinging his dangling head back and forth.

" **IT'S GOING TO TAKE FOREVER TO GET TO THE FOOD CELLAR. GOT IT? IF THEY SPOT US WE'LL HAVE TO FIGHT, HUNGRY. ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE SUNNY, WHICH HASN'T EVEN DOCKED HERE YET. IT CAN'T! BECAUSE THERE'S MARINES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE! SO KEEP A LOW PROFILE. GET IT?"**

 _Luffy nodded gently._

 _"_ _Still not convinced he got it." Zoro said. He was wincing at the sun, which was now shining brightly at them in the center of the clear sky. It was taking him back to how it had felt being lost in Alabaster._

 _"_ _LUFFY." Nami enunciated his name sternly._

 _"_ _Repeat after me:_

 _If the navy sees me, I have to wait longer to eat."_

 _The captain tried it out._

 _It was hard…_

 _"_ _Ibh… nnn nabhyuey seezhm…"_

 _He got through half the sentence before he seemed to awaken from his low-bloodsugar coma. He jolted, horrified. "I have to wait LONGER TO EAT?"_

 ** _"_** ** _THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING FOR A FULL MINUTE! GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!"_** _Sanji and Zoro shouted._

 _"_ _Stay here for a second." Nami said, before army crawling her way up the hill carefully to inspect the scenery. She removed her backpack and pulled the map back out of it while keeping it on her side._

 _After having oriented herself she made up her mind._

 _Rather than opt for taking the staircase in front of them, the majority of the straw hat crew made its way northwards as she'd commanded. As they neared the first row of houses via a more discreet country path, Robin muted the den den mushis they had with them._

 _"_ _If Franky or Usopp call us, it won't give us away. The snails will vibrate in our bags._

 _The architecture of the town they entered was quaint. Efficiently built, yet rustic enough that it could not be confused for anything of this age. Houses were pillared and balconied and lined with thick, rich wood. Regular wood. The oddities they had walked through the past several hours were nowhere to be seen. If it hadn't been for the navy's presence, and the complete absence of anybody else, the crew would have felt they were on holiday. The gentle sound of of waves was faint, but pervaded the air wherever you went._

 _The straw hats treaded softly and quietly through the shady, derelict cobblestone streets. As Nami, at the front of the group, holding a map, approached the entrance to their destination, she stopped in her tracks. The rest followed suit, as they heard the same thing she did._

 _"_ _So you think there's any sign of life left on this island?" Asked a blue-white clad man. Standard navy uniform. Luckily him and his three colleagues had their backs turned. So they did not see the navigator peeking from a shadowed alley behind them._

 _"_ _Nah. That distress call a few years back was the last thing we heard. If you ask me, everything sentient on this island's dead. This mission would be a waste of time if it wasn't for all the salvageable resources left here."_

 _Robin whispered "leave this to me" to her friends, who did just that._

 _She crossed her arms, and grew several out atop a roof nearby them. There happened to be a pile of bricks atop it. All these were hidden from view of the marines._

She threw two bricks, with force. One followed by the other, straight through a glass window located in the opposite direction of the location of the straw hats.

The moment the loud shattering noise had ended, there was a "What was that ?!"

"Way to go Robin!" Nami smiled. No longer whispering, but still maintaining a quieter and softer than normal style of speech.

"This way!" She said, as she folded the map back down and stuffed it in her pocket.

They dashed across the street, opening the door of an empty tavern, and filing one by one into it. They shut themselves in, as the wooden sign with a painted cornucopia and a glass of beer dangled in the breeze.


End file.
